OUR  COUNTRY'S  FLAG 

AND   THE    FLAGS   OF 
FOREIGN   COUNTRIES 


BY 


EDWARD  S.   HOLDEN,   LL.  D. 

\\ 


NEW   YORK    AND    LONDON 

D.  APPLETON   AND   COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,  1893,  1916, 
BY   D.  Ai'PLETON   AND   COMx'ANV. 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


AUTHOR'S  PREFACE, 


IN  Part  I  of  this  book  a  history  of  the 
national  flag  of  America  is  given.  It  is  pre- 
sented first  because  every  American  child 
should,  first  of  all,  know  how  the  flag  of  his 
country  came  to  be  what  it  is.  Some  ac- 
count is  also  given  of  the  various  standards 
that  were  set  up  on  the  continent  of  North 
America  by  the  early  discoverers  and  ex- 
plorers. From  the  settlements  at  Jamestown 
in  Virginia  (1607)  and  at  Plymouth  in  Mas- 
sachusetts (1620)  until  the  American  Revo- 
lution (1775),  the  flag  of  England  was  the 
flag  of  the  colonists.  The  king's  colors  flew 
on  forts  and  ships  of  war,  but  the  white  en- 
sign with  the  red  cross  of  St.  George  was  the 
flag  of  the  people. 

343124 


iv  OUR  COUNTRY'S  FLAG. 

The  protest  of  the  colonists  against  un- 
just rule  led  to  the  assumption  of  liberty- 
flags  in  every  colony.  In  1775  a  flag  was 
adopted  by  the  colonies  to  mark  their  union 
for  securing,  by  force  if  necessary,  their 
rights  as  Englishmen.  On  the  4th  of  July, 
1776,  the  Declaration  of  American  Inde- 
pendence proclaimed  "  that  all  political  con- 
nection between  us  and  the  State  of  Great 
Britain  is,  and  ought  to  be,  totally  dis- 
solved," and  a  year  later  the  Congress 
adopted  the  flag  of  thirteen  stripes  with  its 
union  of  thirteen  stars — a  new  constellation 
— to  symbolize  the  birth  of  a  new  nation. 

During  the  whole  history  of  America, 
therefore,  our  flag  has  been  the  flag  of  a 
country,  not  the  personal  standard  of  a  king 
or  of  an  emperor.  It  stands,  and  it  has 
stood,  for  us  as  the  symbol  of  an  abstract 
idea,  not  as  the  sign  of  the  power  of  any 
ruler.  It  is,  and  it  has  been,  a  national  flag, 
not  a  personal  standard. 

This  is  by  no  means  the  case  with  the 
flags  of  other  and  of  older  nations  that  have 


AUTHOR'S  PREFACE.  v 

gone  through  a  different  development  and 
have  had  a  different  history.  France,  for 
example,  is  far  older  than  the  United  States, 
yet  the  French  people  had  no  national  flag 
until  after  the  revolution  of  1789.  Before 
that  time  its  banners  represented  the  power 
of  the  king.  They  were  personal  standards, 
not  national  flags. 

The  oriflamme  of  St.  Denis  was  borne 
before  the  armies  of  France  because  the 
French  king  had  succeeded  to  the  honors  of 
knight-banneret  of  the  famous  Abbey  of  St. 
Denis.  It  represented  the  national  aspira- 
tions in  a  manner ;  but  it  chiefly  symbolized 
the  belief  that  the  power  of  God  was  on  the 
side  of  the  French  monarchs.  Ever  since 
the  Crusades,  the  banner  of  St.  George  has 
stood  for  England,  not  for  the  power  of  the 
English  king. 

The  idea  of  nationality  has  not  sprung 
up  in  the  world  all  at  once.  In  the  begin- 
ning of  things  an  army  or  a  tribe  gathered 
round  a  chief,  and  his  personal  standard 
stood  for  the  power  of  the  army,  and  the 


vi  OUR  COUNTRY'S  FLAG. 

army  was  the  state.  As  the  state  grew 
stronger  and  more  complex  the  chief  of  the 
state  became — as  in  the  later  years  of  the 
Roman  Republic — merely  its  leading  citizen 
and  soldier;  and  the  emblems  of  power 
grew  more  and  more  to  represent  the  maj- 
esty of  the  state  itself.  The  color-bearer  of 
the  Roman  legion  advanced  the  eagle-stand- 
ard against  the  enemy  in  the  name  of  the 
Republic  and  of  the  commanding  general. 

Mediaeval  Europe  was  under  feudal  lords 
in  whom,  once  more,  the  power  of  their  petty 
states  was  concentrated.  Their  personal 
standards  once  more  represented  the  army 
and  the  state.  The  religious  banners  given 
by  the  Church  to  lords  and  princes  had  some- 
thing of  the  character  of  national  banners; 
and  the  crosses  of  different  colors  borne  by 
the  Crusaders  (white  crosses  for  the  English, 
red  for  the  French,  etc.),  distinguished  sol- 
diers of  different  nationalities.  But  even  the 
Crusaders  owed  their  first  fealty  to  the  ban- 
ners of  their  personal  chiefs.  Each  knight 
followed  the  fortunes  of  his  overlord. 


AUTHOR'S  PREFACE.  vii 

It  was  not  until  very  recent  times  that 
the  idea  was  born  that  each  nationality 
must  have  its  separate  flag.  The  flag  of 
Germany  dates  from  1871,  that  of  Italy  from 
1848;  of  Japan  from  1859.  China  has  had 
imperial  and  republican  flags  since  1872. 

The  American  boy  who  reads  this  book 
must  recollect  that  his  flag,  like  the  flag  of 
England,  has  always  been  the  flag  of  a  peo- 
ple, and  that  he  unconsciously  thinks  of  it 
as  his  flag  in  a  stricter  and  more  personal 
sense  than  if  he  were  a  Bavarian  or  a  Prus- 
sian lad,  whose  national  flag — the  German — 
is  not  yet  a  generation  old.  There  are  cen- 
turies of  devotion  to  the  symbols  of  the  flag 
in  our  English  blood. 

A  large  part  of  this  book  is  taken  up 
with  the  history  of  the  flags  of  foreign  na- 
tions— that  is,  with  the  history  of  the  symbols 
that  stand  for  the  hopes,  desires,  beliefs,  and 
aspirations  of  countries  other  than  our  own. 

A  flag  is  a  symbol  that  stands  for  all 
these  things  just  as  the  cross  stands  for 

Christianity.     How  is  it  that  the  symbol  of 

i 


Viii  OUR  COUNTRY'S  FLAG. 

the  cross  really  represents  Christianity  to 
our  thoughts,  not  merely  to  our  eyes  ?  How 
is  it  that  a  flag,  which  is  nothing  more  than 
a  bit  of  colored  cloth  to  our  touch  or  to  our 
sight,  really  comes  to  stand  for  the  idea  of 
our  country  ? 

The  answers  to  such  questions  as  these 
are  given  in  Chapter  III  of  this  book,  and 
no  boy  can  read  it  without  gaining  new  and 
far-reaching  conceptions  of  the  antiquity,  the 
universality,  and  the  power  of  symbols. 

Symbols  stand  close  to  man  and  interpret 
great  ideas  to  him.  They  enable  his  feeble 
imagination  to  maintain  a  grasp  on  vast  ab- 
stractions like  the  idea  of  religion,  or  of 
country.  Two  bits  of  stick  crossed  and  held 
aloft  have  sustained  the  fainting  heart  of 
many  a  Christian  martyr  in  the  presence  of 
the  savage  beasts  of  the  arena ;  and  the  sight 
of  his  country's  flag  has  nerved  the  arm  of 
many  a  soldier  in  extremest  stress  and  trial. 

A  true  and  complete  history  of  the  flags 
of  the  world — of  national  symbols — would 
be  nothing  less  than  a  history  of  the  aspira- 


AUTHOR'S  PREFACE.  ix 

tions  of  men  and  nations,  and  of  the  institu- 
tions that  they  have  devised  to  obtain  the 
object  of  their  hopes  and  to  preserve  intact 
what  they  have  conquered.  Not  even  a 
sketch  of  such  a  history  is  attempted  here. 
But  it  is  believed  that  no  American  child 
can  read  these  chapters  without  understand- 
ing somewhat  of  these  great  matters;  nor 
without  acquiring  a  larger  conception  of  loy- 
alty, of  patriotism,  and  of  duty. 

E.  S.  H. 

STOCKBRIDGE,  June  17,  1898. 


TO 

MASTER  ARNOLD    WHITRIDGE. 


CONTENTS, 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

AUTHOR'S  PREFACE •   .        .  iii 

NOTE   FOR   THE    READERS    OF   THIS    BOOK       .  .  .       xiii 


PART  I. 

THE  AMERICAN  FLAG. 

I. — FLAGS  OP  ENGLAND  AND  THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES, 

1607-1766       1 

FLAGS  OF  THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES,  1766-1776        .      19 
II. — THE  FLAG   OF   THE  UNITED  STATES  OF   AMERICA, 

1777-1795 28 

THE    FLAG    OF    THE    UNITED    STATES    OF    AMERICA, 

1795-1818 34 

THE     FLAG    OF     THE    UNITED    STATES    OF    AMERICA, 

1818-1916 35 

OFFICIAL  FLAGS .       .      40 

THE  GREAT   SEAL   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES   OF 

AMERICA 44 

NATIONAL  SONGS  OF  AMERICA   ...       *       .  47 

THE  MEANING  OF  THE  AMERICAN  FLAG    ...  56 

THE  MAN  WITHOUT  A  COUNTRY 62 


OUR  COUNTRY'S  FLAG. 

PART  II. 

THE  FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 

PAGE 

III.— ANCIENT  STANDARDS  AND  BANNERS— EMBLEMS— SYM- 
BOLS— THE  CROSS — ANCIENT  FLAGS          ...        65 
IV. — THE    FLAGS    OF    FOREIGN     NATIONS — ENGLAND — SIG- 
NALING   BY    FLAGS— UNITED    STATES    WEATHER 
BUREAU  SIGNALS — SALUTES — FRANCE  ...      91 
V. — THE   FLAGS  OF   FOREIGN   NATIONS — THE  FLAGS  OF 
SOVEREIGN    STATES   (the   different  countries  are 
arranged    alphabetically  for  convenient  refer- 
ence)     .  139 


NOTE  FOB  THE  KEADEKS  OF  THIS 
BOOK. 


IT  has  seemed  best  to  divide  this  little  book  into  two 
parts  :  First,  the  history  of  the  American  flag ;  second, 
some  account  of  flags  in  general,  and  of  the  flags  of 
European  nations  in  particular.  The  history  of  the 
American  flag  is  printed  first,  because  every  American 
child  should  know  that  history  first  of  all.  Afterward 
he  can  read  the  second  part  of  the  book,  which  will  tell 
him  many  interesting  things  about  the  meaning  of  flags, 
and  about  their  uses  on  land  and  sea.  Many  of  the  ex- 
cellent plates  are  printed  in  colors,  but  not  all  of  them. 
A  number  of  those  in  black  and  white  are  drawn  so  that 
they  also  express  the  colors  in  the  following  way : 


White 
(Argent). 


Yellow 
(Or). 


Xlll 


OUR  COUNTRY'S  FLAG. 

Whenever  a  surface  is  left  unshaded  it  stands  for  white 
(the  French  word  for  silver  is  argent).  When  the  sur- 
face is  covered  with  little  dots  it  stands  for  yellow  (the 
French  word  for  gold  is  or).  When  the  surface  is 
shaded  with  vertical  straight  lines  it  stands  for  red  (the 
French  word  corresponding-  is  gules)  ;  and  so  on  for  the 
other  colors.  These  French  words  have  become  Eng- 
lish, and  they  are  to  be  pronounced  exactly  as  they  are 
spelled,  according  to  English  rules.  If  you  wish  to  un- 
derstand the  colors  in  one  of  the  black  and  white  draw- 
ings of  this  book  you  should  look  for  the  shadings  in 
the  different  parts  of  the  banner  or  flag,  and  read  them 
by  this  color  alphabet 


t        1 


OUR  COUNTRY'S  FLAG, 

AND  THE 

FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  COUNTRIES. 


PART  I. 
THE  AMERICAN  FLAG. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THERE  is  little  doubt  that  the  adventur- 
ous Northmen  from  Iceland  (a  province  of 
Denmark)  discovered  the 
continent  of  America 
long  before  the  first  voy- 
age of  Columbus.  We 
know  but  little  of  their 
journeys,  and  we  may 
say,  at  any  rate,  that  the 
discoveries  of  Columbus, 
in  1492  and  later,  made  FlG- 1--™®  standard  of 

Spain  in  1492.  The  gol- 
America    known   to    the         den  castles  on  the  red 

Old  World.     It  chances       fields  stand  for  Castile ; 

the  red  lions  on  white 

that    the   flags   displayed         fields  stand  for  Leon. 
2  I 


2  THE  AMERICAN  FLAG. 

by  the  Spaniards  when  Columbus  landed 
on  October  12,  1492,  have  been  described 
by  his  own  son.  They 
were  two — the  standard 
of  Spain  and  the  banner 
of  the  expedition.  These 
were  the  first  European 
flags,  of  which  we  know 
anything,  that  were  dis- 
played on  the  continent 
of  North  America. 

The  many  expedi- 
tions of  discovery  in  the 
years  following  Colum- 

anity  (green  is  the  color      ^  j     i      •        j.i         • 

ofhopeUeFandYfor    bus,  and  during  the  six- 

Ferdinand  and  Ysabel,      teenth    century,  brought 
S^ain lDg ^^  QU6en  °f     °ther  fla£S  t0  OUI>  8horeS- 

English,  Spanish,  French, 
Portuguese,  even  Venetian.  Each  discov- 
erer planted  the  flag  of  his  country,  or  per- 
haps the  standard  of  the  monarch  under 
whose  patronage  his  voyage  was  made. 
French,  Spanish,  Swedish,  and  Dutch  colo- 
nies were  planted  on  our  shores.  Ameri- 
cans are  most  interested  in  the  history  of 
the  English  colonies  and  in  the  flags  of 
England  and  of  our  own  country. 


FIG.  2. — The  white  banner 
of  the  first  expedition  of 
Columbus.  The  green 
cross  stands  for  Christi- 


THE FLAG  OF  ENGLAND.  3 

We  are  used  to  think  of  our  country  as 
one  of  the  youngest  in  the  family  of  nations, 
and  it  is  so.  But  our  flag  is  by  no  means 
the  youngest  of  national  symbols.  It  was 
adopted  in  1777  in  its  present  form,  and  has 
remained  essentially  unchanged  since  1818. 
Very  many  of  the  present  flags  of  the  old 
countries  of  Europe  are  much  younger  than 
ours.  The  French  flag  was  established  in 
1794.  The  flag  of  the  German  Empire  dates 
from  1871.  The  flag  of  Italy  was  adopted  in 
1848.  Spain's  flag,  in  its  present  form,  is  not 
older  than  1785;  Portugal's  republican,  1910; 
Russia's  merchant  tricolor  is  quite  modern. 

FLAGS    OF   ENGLAND    AND    THE    AMERICAN 
COLONIES,  1G07-1766. 

England  claimed  for  her  colonies  in  North 
America  all  the  seacoast  from  Halifax  in 
Nova  Scotia  to  Cape  Fear  (near  Wilmington) 
in  North  Carolina,  and  all  the  territory  west- 
ward from  this  seacoast — that  is,  as  far  as 
the  Pacific  Ocean.  This  immense  domain 
was  granted  to  two  companies.  The  "  Plym- 
outh Company  "  controlled  the  region  from 
Canada  to  New  York.  The  "  London  Com- 
pany" controlled  the  region  from  the  Poto- 


4  THE  AMERICAN  FLAG. 

mac  to  Cape  Fear.  A  broad  strip  was  left  be- 
tween  the  two  territories,  so  as  to  avoid  any 
troubles  and  disputes  about  boundaries. 

The  sovereignty  over  all  the  territory  re- 
mained, of  course,  in  the  hands  of  the  English 
king;  but  the  immediate  rule  was  given  to 
these  two  companies,  just  as  the  rule  of  India 
was  given  (in  1600)  to  the  "East  India  Com- 
pany," and  just  as  the  rule  over  parts  of 
Africa  was  given  to  the  "  Imperial  British 
East  Africa  Company"  (1888),  or  to  the 
"  British  South  Africa  Company "  in  our 
own  days. 

The  companies  of  "knights,  gentlemen, 
and  merchants "  in  England  furnished  the 
money  necessary  to  send  colonists  out  to 
America,  and  expected  to  gain  their  profits 
from  trade  in  lumber,  fish,  etc.  The  domin- 
ion over  the  colonies  remained  with  the  king 
and  Parliament  of  England,  and  the  flag  of 
the  colonies  was  of  course  the  English  flag. 
A  flag  is  the  visible  sign  and  symbol  of  do- 
minion. 

A  full  history  of  the  flag  of  England, 
which  was  our  flag  until  theWar  of  the  Revo- 
lution, is  given  in  the  second  part  of  this 
book.  For  long  centuries,  certainly  since  A.  D. 


THE  FLAGS  OF  ENGLAND  AND  SCOTLAND.      5 


1327  (in  the  time  of  King  Edward  III),  the 
flag  of  England  was  the  cross  of  St.  George, 
a  red  cross  on  a  white  field.  As  St.  George's 


*.  3.— The  flag  of  England  (St.  George's  cross)  from  1327 
onward. 


cross  was  the  flag  of  the  English,  so  St. 
Andrew's  cross  was  the  flag  of  the  Scottish 
people.  The  cross  of  St.  Andrew  was  white 
on  a  blue  field.  The  crosses  of  St.  George 
and  of  St.  Andrew  are  shown  in  their  true 
colors  in  Plate  III,  where  they  are  combined 
with  the  cross  of  St.  Patrick  (for  Ireland), 
which  is  red  on  a  white  ground. 

King  James  VI  of  Scotland  succeeded  to 


6  THE  AMERICAN  FLAG. 

the  throne  of  England  (as  King  James  I)  in 
1603,  and  the  two  kingdoms  of  England  and 
Scotland  were  united  at  last  after  centuries  of 
strife  and  war.  The  new  sovereignty  needed 
a  new  flag,  and  in  1606  the  flag  was  made 
by  uniting  the  crosses  of  St.  George  and  of 
St.  Andrew  in  one  field.  It  was  called  "  the 
king's  colors,"  not  the  flag  of  Great  Britain. 


Pio.  4.— St.  Andrew's  cross— the  flag  of  Scotland  since  the 
time  of  the  Crusades. 

England  still  had  its  flag  (St.  George's  cross) 
and  Scotland  had  its  flag  also  (St.  Andrew's 
cross). 


TIIK   KING'S  COLORS. 


When  King   Charles  I  was  executed  in 
1649,  England  became  a  Commonwealth  un- 


pIG.  5. — The  king's  colors,  1606.  In  a  slightly  changed  form  it 
is  still  the  color  of  the  reigning  monarch  of  England.  See 
Fig.  35  following. 

der  Oliver  Cromwell,  the  Lord  Protector, 
and  changes  were  made  in  the  flag  that  we 
do  not  need  to  know  about  now.  In  1660 
Charles  II  (son  of  Charles  I)  was  restored  to 
the  throne,  and  changes  were  again  made  in 
the  flag  of  Great  Britain.*  Early  in  1707 

*  Great  Britain  is  England  and  Scotland,  and  does  not  in- 
clude Ireland.  Queen  Victoria  rules  over  "  the  United  Kingdom 
of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,"  and  she  is  Empress  of  India. 


8  THE  AMERICAN  FLAG. 

the  "union"  flag  was  adopted  as  in  the  next 
drawing.  It  was  a  red  ensign,  with  the  sym- 
bol of  the  union  of  England  and  Scotland  in 
the  upper  and  inner  corner.  The  space  occu- 


FIG.  6.— The  red  ensign  of  Great  Britain,  adopted  in  1707  and 
used  until  1801,  when  Ireland  was  admitted  into  the 
union.  The  flag  of  most  British  merchant  vessels  is  like 
this.  The  war  vessels  now  fly  the  cross  of  St.  George  on  a 
white  field  with  a  union  in  the  upper  and  inner  corner, 
though  they  used  to  display  this  red  ensign — "  the  meteor 
flag  of  England."  See  Plate  III,  and  also  Fig.  35,  for  the 
present  form  of  these  flags. 

pied  by  the  union  is  called  a  canton,  a  word 
which  you  must  remember,  as  it  is  often 
used. 


THE   FLAG  OF  THE  AMERICAN   COLONIES.       9 

The  English  flags  that  are  shown  in  the 
pictures  were  the  official  flags  of  the  colonies 
in  America  from  1620  to  the  Revolutionary 
War  in  1776,  when  it  was  declared  that 
"  these  united  colonies  are,  and  of  right  ought 
to  be,  free  and  independent  states."  The  little 
ship  Mayflower  (1620)  brought  its  freight  of 
Pilgrims  under  the  cross  of  St.  George,  which 
was  then  the  flag  of  all  English  ships.  The 
king's  colors,  with  the  union,  may  also  have 
been  displayed,  though  we  have  no  certain 
knowledge  on  this  point.  British  ships  of 
war  visiting  the  coasts  of  America  in  later 
years  would  certainly  fly  the  king's  colors, 
and  finally,  after  1707,  the  red  ensign  with 
its  "union"  was  the  official  flag  of  Great 
Britain  and  of  all  her  colonies. 

A  flag  stands  for  dominion,  for  govern- 
ment, for  power.  And  the  symbols  of  the 
flag  tell  something  of  the  history  and  of  the 
aspirations  of  a  people.  The  cross  of  St. 
George  was  the  ancient  flag  of  "Merry 
England."  Under  it  great  battles  had  been 
fought.  All  Englishmen  were  proud  of  it. 
Its  cross  was  the  symbol  of  St.  George, 
the  patron  saint  of  England. 

The  Scottish  knights  who  had  traveled 


10  THE  AMERICAN  FLAG. 

the  weary  way  from  Edinburgh  to  the  Holy 
Land  in  the  wars  of  the  Crusades  (A.  D. 
1095-1270)  bore  St.  Andrew's  banner.  The 
two  crosses  were  at  last  united  in  the 
"union"  of  1606.  The  red  cross  of  Ireland 
was  added  to  the  union  in  1801.  A  flag 
has  a  meaning  then.  It  embodies  a  history ; 
it  stands  for  an  idea ;  it  may  express  a 
hope. 

If  you  think  carefully  about  the  flag  of 
any  nation — what  it  is,  how  it  came  to  be — 
you  will  see  that  this  banner  is  something 
more  than  a  thing  made  of  colored  cloths.  It 
is  really  visible  history.  It  is  the  great  ideas 
of  the  nation  expressed  in  symbols,  in  forms, 
in  colors.  The  flag  stands  for  the  past  his- 
tory of  a  people,  or  at  least  for  that  part  of 
it  of  which  they  are  proud.  It  stands  for 
the  truths  they  believe  in ;  it  stands  for  the 
principles  they  profess. 

The  flag  of  England  symbolizes  a  history 
six  centuries  long  filled  with  stirring  events. 
The  flag  of  the  United  States  stands  for 
the  history  of  English  colonists  who  have 
founded  a  nation  for  themselves.  Every 
human  being  under  either  of  these  flags  is 
free,  entitled  to  the  equal  protection  of  the 


THE   FLAG   OP  THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES.     H 

mw,  possessed  of  rights,  and  not  dependent 
on  other  men  for  favors. 

Most  of  the  American  colonists  were  de- 
voted and  loyal  subjects  of  England.  They 
looked  to  the  "old  country"  with  affection- 
ate remembrance.  They  were  fond  of  their 
adopted  country  at  the  same  time,  and  their 
new  circumstances  gave  them  a  taste  for 
freedom.  Every  year  that  passed  made  them 
more  independent. 

But  a  very  considerable  number  of  the 
colonists  were  by  no  means  friendly  to  the 
mother  country.  They  had  suffered  perse- 
cution from  the  Church  of  England,  and 
they  had  emigrated  to  a  distant  land  to  be 
rid  of  religious  as  well  as  of  political  con- 
straint. They  were  ardent  Protestants  and 
above  all  things  they  hated  "  Papists," — Ro- 
man Catholics  who  obeyed  a  pope.  They 
were  determined  to  obey  nothing  but  their 
own  consciences — to  be  their  own  popes. 

As  early  as  1634  there  were  mutterings 
in  the  colony  of  Massachusetts  Bay  that  the 
cross  of  St.  George  in  the  English  flag  was 
a  papistical  symbol.  It  had  been  given  to 
an  English  king  by  a  pope,  and  blessed  by  a 
pope,  and  it  seemed  to  them  to  be  a  sign  of 


12  THE  AMERICAN  FLAG. 

obedience  to  Rome.  It  was  "idolatrous," 
they  said.  Therefore  it  ought  not  to  remain. 

This  seems  a  strange  idea  to  us  now,  for 
we  have  accepted  the  cross  as  the  sign  of 
Christianity.  Christ  died  on  the  cross,  and 
the  symbol  belongs  to  the  whole  world  of 
Christians.  But  the  Puritans  did  not  feel  as 
we  do.  To  them  the  cross  stood  for  perse- 
cutions that  they  had  not  forgotten.  It  rep- 
resented a  power  that  was  still  feared  and 
hated.  Accordingly  some  very  zealous  and 
daring  spirits  at  Salem,  in  Massachusetts,  cut 
the  cross  out  of  the  banner  of  the  soldiery 
there,  so  that  it  might  no  longer  display  a 
"papistical"  symbol.  It  was  a  religious 
scruple  that  inspired  the  act,  not  disloyalty 
to  the  English  king. 

But  the  flag,  with  its  cross,  was  the  sym- 
bol of  the  dominion  of  England.  It  was  a 
sign  of  the  power  of  the  state  and  of  the 
king,  and  it  was  treason  to  affront  that 
power.  So  that  the  people  in  authority  in 
Boston  were  in  a  dilemma.  They  were  afraid 
to  approve  the  act  for  fear  of  offending  Eng- 
land ;  and  afraid  to  disapprove  it,  for  fear  of 
offending  their  own  people. 

The  matter  was  finally  arranged  by  al- 


THE  FLAG   OP  THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES.      13 

lowing  the  king's  colors  to  be  displayed  over 
the  castle  in  Boston  harbor,  because  the  cas- 
tle belonged  to  the  king ;  and  by  permitting 
the  different  military  companies  throughout 
the  colonies  to  choose  colors  for  themselves, 
which  they  did.  The  military  company  of 
Newburyport,  for  instance,  in  1684,  carried 
a  green  flag  with  the  cross  of  St.  George  on  a 
white  canton  in  its  upper  and  inner  quarter. 

At  the  very  beginning  of  the  history  of 
the  English  colonies  in  America  the  question 
of  what  flag  to  fly  was  discussed.  The  Eng- 
lish flag  seemed  to  many  of  the  colonists  to 
represent  something  they  disapproved.  So 
far  as  it  stood  for  the  English  state,  or  for 
the  power  of  the  English  king,  they  found 
no  fault  with  it.  So  far  as  the  cross  was 
a  papist  symbol  they  hated,  despised,  and 
feared  it;  and  the  colonists  had  their  own 
way. 

They  were  so  distant  from  England  that 
no  notice  was  taken  of  their  action.  Such 
actions  would  not  have  been  permitted  to 
Englishmen  at  home.  It  was  an  important 
matter,  however,  because  it  set  the  colonists 
to  thinking  how  far  they  were  really  inde- 
pendent of  the  mother  country,  and  whether 


14  THE  AMERICAN  FLAG. 

they  might  not  some  day  set  up  a  govern- 
ment and  a  flag  of  their  own. 

All  kinds  of  influences  were  educating 
the  colonists  to  be  independent  of  England, 
and  to  depend  only  upon  themselves.  They 
were  forced  to  defend  themselves  against  hos- 
tile Indians,  and  to  maintain  a  little  army 
They  had  to  provide  for  their  own  defense 
against  foreign  enemies,  too.  In  the  records 
of  the  town  of  Roxbury  in  1673  there  are 
"  Tidings  of  the  Dutch  assaulting  New  York, 
which  awakened  us  to  put  ourselves  in  a  pos- 
ture of  war,  to  prepare  fortifications,  and  to 
seek  the  face  of  God." 

The  religious  colonists  depended  on  God 
to  be  their  helper ;  and  in  the  matter  of  war 
they  built  their  own  fortifications,  bought 
their  own  gunpowder,  fired  it  from  their  own 
cannon,  and  did  not  rely  for  any  aid  upon 
a  mother  country  three  thousand  miles  over 
sea,  that  was  busy  about  its  own  defenses, 
and  chiefly  concerned  about  its  own  affairs. 
The  exiled  colonists  had  a  new  country  of 
their  own,  they  were  "  subject  to  this  com- 
monwealth and  the  government  Jwre" as  they 
declared,  and  they  were  ready  to  defend  it 
against  all  comers. 


THE  FLAG   OF  THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES.       15 

As  early  as  1645  the  colonies  of  Plym- 
outh, Massachusetts  Bay,  and  Connecticut, 
formed  a  union  for  defense,  and  appointed 
commissioners  to  conduct  their  common  de- 
fense. Miles  Standish  *  was  one  of  the  first 
commissioners  from  Massachusetts.  This 
league  was  the  seed  from  which  our  union 
of  American  States  has  sprung.  From  1643 
onward,  the  idea  of  such  a  union  was  more 
or  less  familiar.  The  "Act  of  perpetual 
union  between  the  States"  (1776)  and  the 
adoption  of  the  "  Constitution  of  the  United 
States"  (1788)  were  mere  consequences  of 
this  early  idea  fostered,  as  it  was,  by  all  the 
conditions  of  life  in  a  country  far  removed 
from  the  mother  kingdom. 

So  the  king's  colors  were  hoisted  at  the 
king's  forts  and  on  his  ships.  The  people 
in  general  had  little  use  for  flags,  but  their 
military  companies  displayed  special  flags  of 
their  own.  In  1649  Charles  I  was  beheaded, 
and  there  was  no  longer  a  king.  The  Gen- 
eral Court  of  Massachusetts  ordered  in  1651 
"  that  the  captain  shall  advance  the  aforesaid 
colors  of  England  upon  all  necessary  occa- 

*  The  hero  of  Longfellow's  poem,  The  Courtship  of  Miles 
Standish. 


16  THE  AMERICAN  FLAG. 

sions."  The  aforesaid  colors  were  the  white 
flag  of  St.  George,  that  had  lately  been 
adopted  by  the  English  Parliament.  When 
King  Charles  II  came  back  in  1660,  the 
king's  colors  came  with  him. 

In  1652  Massachusetts  coined  her  pine- 
tree  currency,  silver  coins,  stamped  with  a 
pine  tree,  "  as  an  apt  symbol  of  her  progres- 
sive vigor."  The  pine  tree  appears  later 
upon  some  New  England  flags,  along  with 
the  cross  of  St.  George.  The  cross  would 
stand  for  England,  and  the  pine  tree  would 
express  the  fact  that  the  colony  claimed  a 
right  to  its  own  flag,  although  it  was  at  the 
same  time  an  English  colony. 

England,  nowadays,  permits  her  greater 
colonies,  such  as  Canada,  Australia,  etc.,  to 
coin  money  and  to  display  a  flag.  But  in 
the  days  of  Charles  II  this  was  considered 
to  be  a  piece  of  great  presumption,  and  to 
show  that  the  New  England  colonies  were  on 
the  way  to  become  independent — as  indeed 
they  were.  There  is  an  anecdote  that  shows 
what  Charles  II  thought  about  the  matter. 

Charles  had  been  saved  from  capture 
after  the  battle  of  Worcester  (1G51)  by  hid- 
ing in  an  oak  tree — the  royal  oak,  so  called — 


THE   PINE-TREE  FLAG  OP  NEW  ENGLAND.    17 


and  the  figure  of  the  pine  tree  on  the  shilling 
was  so  rudely  made  that  it  might  be  mis- 
taken for  an  oak.  This  was  fortunate  for 


FIG.  7.— The  pine-tree  flag  of  New  England. 

the  colonists,  because  the  king  was  in  a  gr^at 
rage  when  some  one  showed  him  the  pine- 
tree  currency,  and  when  he  learned  in  this 
way  that  New  England  was  presuming  to 
coin  money  of  her  own.  This  was  an  unpar- 
donable assumption  of  authority. 

But  when  it  was  suggested  that  the  tree 
might  be  the  royal  oak  which  had  saved  the 
king's  life,  his  anger  was  appeased,  and  he 

3 


18  THE  AMERICAN  FLAG. 

said  in  good-humor,  "Well,  after  all,  they 
are  a  parcel  of  honest  dogs  ! "  and  was  will- 
ing to  listen  to  requests  made  in  their  behalf. 

Each  of  the  older  colonies  had  a  seal  that 
was  stamped  on  legal  papers  and  the  like. 
These  seals  were  afterward  used  for  the 
coats  of  arms  of  the  colonies,  and  they  are 
now  used  on  the  flags  of  some  of  the  States.* 

Some  of  the  colonies  had  mottoes,  and  one 
of  these  mottoes  must  be  mentioned,  because  it 
was  often  used  on  flags  during  the  early  part 
of  the  Revolutionary  War.  It  was  adopted 
by  many  regiments  of  New  England  troops. 
This  is  the  motto  of  Connecticut.  The  seal 
was  a  number  of  grapevines ;  and  the  Latin 
motto,  Qui  transtulit  sustinet,  means  that  He 
who  brought  us  (the  colonists)  over  (the 
ocean)  will  sustain  us.  An  early  motto 
of  Massachusetts  (not  its  present  one)  was 
An  appeal  to  Heaven.  The  mottoes  of  most 
of  the  States  are  younger  than  these  two,  and 
were  adopted  when  they  were  admitted  into 
the  Union. 


*  The  seals  of  the  States  may  be  found  in  Xieber's  Her- 
aldry in  America,  which  is  in  most  large  public  libraries,  and  in 
other  books. 


FLAGS  OF  THE  AMERICAN   COLONIES.        19 
FLAGS    OF   THE    AMERICAN    COLONIES,   1766-1776. 

The  flags  of  England  and  of  her  North 
American  colonies  have  been  described  in 
what  goes  before.  The  main  points  to  re- 
member are  that  the  flag  of  England  was  the 
red  St.  George's  cross  on  a  white  field ;  that 
the  king's  colors  were  the  symbol  of  the 
king's  power,  and  the  mark  of  the  union  of 
England  with  Scotland ;  and  that  the  united 
New  England  colonies  had  a  flag  of  their 
own. 

This  last  flag  was  not  authorized,  nor 
was  it  everywhere  used ;  but  the  people  had 
become  accustomed  to  the  idea  that  New 
England  was  in  some  ways  independent  of 
the  mother  country,  and  had  some  right  to 
her  own  flag.  In  the  southern  colonies  the 
flags  of  England  were  generally  used. 

The  years  from  1766  till  the  outbreak  of 
the  Revolutionary  War  in  1775,  and  to  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  in  1776,  were 
troublous  times  in  the  colonies.  Everywhere 
the  Americans  found  fault  with  their  Brit- 
ish governors,  with  the  laws,  and  with  the 
taxes  laid  upon  their  commerce.  It  seemed 
to  them  that  they  should  have  all  the  rights 


20  THE  AMERICAN  FLAG. 

of  Englishmen.  And  one  of  those  rights 
was  not  to  be  taxed  unless  they  had  repre- 
sentatives in  Parliament  to  speak  for  them 
and  to  vote  upon  the  matter  of  taxes. 

Many  of  the  laws  made  in  England  for  the 
government  of  the  colonies  were  perfectly  just, 
but  a  number  of  them  were  unreasonable.  The 
royal  governors  enforced,  or  tried  to  enforce, 
all  the  laws,  just  and  unjust  alike.  And  the 
colonists,  who  began  by  protesting  against 
the  unjust  laws,  finally  came  to  throwing  off 
their  obedience  to  all  laws  that  they  had  not 
themselves  made.  As  early  as  1773  it  was 
publicly  asked  "whether  the  only  asylum 
for  our  liberties  is  not  an  American  common- 
wealth ? "  Your  school  history  will  have 
made  you  familiar  with  these  disputes. 

England  laid  taxes  by  the  "  stamp  act " 
of  1765,  and  this  raised  such  a  storm  of  pro- 
tests that  it  was  soon  repealed.  Liberty 
poles,  with  flags  on  them,  were  set  up  in  pro- 
test by  the  colonists  everywhere.  The  motto 
on  one  New  Hampshire  flag  was  Liberty, prop- 
erty, and  no  stamps.  A  New  York  flag  bore 
the  word  Liberty.  In  South  Carolina,  in  1 765, 
the  stamped  paper  was  captured  and  de- 
stroyed by  the  colonists,  who  hoisted  a  flag 


FLAGS  OF  THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES.        21 

of  their  own — a  blue  flag,  with  three  silver 
crescent  moons. 

Boston  selected  a  "liberty  tree,"  under 
which  the  "  sons  of  liberty  "  held  meetings  in 
1765.  A  flag  at  Taunton  bore  the  words 
Liberty  and  union  ;  one  displayed  (1775)  in 
South  Carolina  the  words  Liberty  or  death. 
"  Liberty  "  became  a  watchword  throughout 
all  the  colonies.  People  traveling  through 
New  England  carried  passports  from  the 
"  sons  of  liberty "  in  their  own  towns  to 
show  that  they  were  good  Americans. 

The  aspirations  and  the  hopes  of  the 
Americans  were  then  expressed  by  this  one 
word — liberty.  They  demanded  liberty  from 
England.  They  were  convinced  that  they 
had  a  just  cause,  and  that  Heaven  would 
help  them.  A  favorite  motto  on  their  flags 
at  the  beginning  of  the  war  of  the  Revolu- 
tion was  An  appeal  to  Heaven.  The  first 
Connecticut  State  troops  that  fought  in  the 
Revolution  carried  a  flag  with  the  State  arms 
and  motto  Qui  transtulit  sustinet* 

No  one  knows  what  flags  were  carried 
by  "  the  embattled  farmers  "  who  fired  "  the 

*  He  who  brought  us  over  (the  ocean)  will  sustain  us  (still), 
is  the  meaning  of  this  motto,  as  has  already  been  said. 


22  THE  AMERICAN  FLAG. 

shot  heard  round  the  world,"  at  Concord,* 
or  at  Blinker  Hill,  though  it  is  said  that  a 
pine-tree  flag  was  used  at  the  battle  of  Bun- 
ker Hill. 

General  Putnam  took  command  of  his 
troops  in  Cambridge  on  July  18,  1775,  and 
unfurled  a  scarlet  flag  bearing  two  mottoes, 
one  the  motto  of  Connecticut,  Qui  transtulit 
sustinet,  the  other  the  favorite  phrase,  An 
appeal  to  Heaven.  In  1776  Massachusetts 
formally  adopted  a  white  flag  bearing  this 
last  motto,  and  a  green  pine  tree,  as  the  flag 
of  her  naval  ships. 

The  rattlesnake,  as  a  national  emblem, 
was  borne  on  several  flags,  sometimes  with 
the  motto  Don't  tread  on  me.  An  emblem 
of  this  sort  is  full  of  a  certain  kind  of  defi- 
ant spirit,  and  it  expressed  a  part  of  the  feel- 
ing of  the  colonists.  But  it  entirely  failed  to 
express  their  conviction  that  they  were  striv- 
ing for  liberty ;  that  their  appeal  to  Heaven 
would  be  heard ;  that  all  the  colonies  were 

*  This  is  the  first  stanza  of  Emerson's  Concord  IJymn : 

By  the  rude  bridge  that  arched  the  flood, 
Their  flag  to  April's  breeze  unfurled, 

Here  once  the  embattled  farmers  stood, 
And  fired  the  shot  heard  'round  tho  world. 


FLAGS  OF  THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES.        23 

united  in  a  just  cause ;  and,  therefore,  rattle- 
snake flags  were  soon  abandoned. 

In  1775  and  1776  flags  were  used  bearing 
stripes — red  and  blue,  or  red  and  white,  or 
white  and  yellow,  or  yellow  and  green. 
These  were  usually  thirteen  in  number,  to 
stand  for  the  thirteen  colonies  in  rebellion. 
The  idea  of  expressing  the  union  of  the 
different  colonies  by  stripes  in  a  flag  became 
familiar  to  every  one  very  early  in  the  history 
of  the  Revolutionary  War. 

The  army  under  General  Washington 
that  besieged  the  British  troops  in  Boston 
(July,  1775)  was  composed  of  troops  from 
several  States,  and  each  company  of  soldiery 
had  its  own  flags.  Sometimes  these  were 
the  special  standards  of  the  company.  Some- 
times the  State  arms  were  displayed.  The 
Continental  Congress  was  in  session  in  Phila- 
delphia, and  it  represented  "  the  United  Colo- 
nies of  North  America."  The  troops  from 
the  various  States  were  no  longer  to  be  State 
troops,  but  the  army  of  the  colonies ;  and  it 
was  necessary  to  provide  them  with  a  flag 
that  should  belong  to  the  "  united  "  colonies, 
and  not  to  any  separate  States. 

The  Continental    Congress   began  to  fit 


THE  AMERICAN  FLAG. 


out  a  navy  in  October,  1775,  and  a  flag 
was  also  needed  for  its  vessels  to  fly  on  the 
high  seas.  An  armed  vessel  without  an 
authorized  flag  is  everywhere  considered  to 
be  a  pirate.  It  was  clearly  necessary  to 
O 


Pio.  8.— The  flag  of  the  United  Colonies  of  America,  first  dis- 
played in  General  Washington's  camp,  January  2,  1776. 

adopt  a  flag  for  the  navy  and  for  the  Conti- 
nental army  as  well,  and  the  Congress  ap- 
pointed a  committee,  with  Dr.  Benjamin 
Franklin  at  its  head,  to  go  to  Cambridge,  to 
consult  with  General  Washington,  and  to 
recommend  such  a  flag. 

The  new  flag  was  first  displayed  at  the 
camp  before  Boston  in  January,  1776,  and  it 


TI1K  FLAG  OF  THE  UNITED  COLONIES.        25 

represented  the  exact  situation  of  affairs.  If 
we  understand  just  how  men  felt  at  this 
time,  we  shall  see  that  the  flag  adopted  ex- 
pressed the  general  feeling  precisely. 

If  one  of  us  now  thinks  of  that  camp 
before  Boston,  commanded  by  General  Wash- 
ington, whose  soldiers  were  besieging  the 
British  regulars,  a  hundred  years  ago,  it 
seems  for  a  moment  that  the  strife  was  be- 
tween Americans  and  foreigners.  Here  was 
an  army  of  foreigners  holding  Boston,  and 
an  army  of  Americans  besieging  them,  and 
the  motto  of  the  Americans  was  Liberty. 
And  by  liberty  we  now  understand  complete 
independence  from  British  rule. 

But  this  was  not  the  idea  of  the  colonists. 
Liberty  to  them  meant  freedom  from  op- 
pressive English  laws.  They  were  fighting 
for  the  freedom  that  other  Englishmen  en- 
joyed. They  called  themselves  Englishmen 
—Englishmen  living  in  America.  No  one 
thought  of  the  British  troops  as  foreigners.* 
We  were  rebellious  English  colonists,  united 
together  to  resist  unjust  taxation,  not  Ameri- 
cans banded  against  a  foreign  foe.  It  was 

*  Not  until  Hessian  and  other  German  troops  were  hired 
by  England  to  fight  in  America. 


26  THE  AMERICAN  FLAG. 

not  until  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
(July  4,  1776)  that  the  colonists  entirely 
threw  off  their  allegiance  to  England. 

The   flag   displayed    over   Washington's 
camp  at  Cambridge  in  January  of  that  year 
exactly  expressed  the  general  situation.    The 
thirteen  stripes  symbolized  the  thirteen  colo- 
nies- 
New  Hampshire,         Delaware, 
Massachusetts,  Maryland, 

Rhode  Island,  Virginia, 

Connecticut,  North  Carolina, 

New  York,  South  Carolina, 

New  Jersey,  Georgia. 

Pennsylvania, 

The  "  union  "  in  the  canton  was  the  king's 
colors.  The  colonies  acknowledged  their 
allegiance  to  England  and  to  the  king,  only 
they  wanted  justice ;  they  wanted  their 
rights  as  Englishmen  ;  and  they  were  united 
in  a  determination  to  secure  these  rights,  and 
to  fight  for  them  if  fighting  was  necessary. 
General  Washington  says  of  this  flag :  "  We 
hoisted  the  Union  flag  in  compliment  to 
the  united  colonies,  and  saluted  it  with  thir- 
teen guns." 


THE  FLAG   OP  THE   UNITED  COLONIES.         27 

The  same  flag,  probably,  was  hoisted  on 
the  naval  ship  of  John  Paul  Jones  at  about 
the  same  time.  It  is  said  that  this  very 
same  flag  was  one  of  the  signal  flags  of  the 
British  navy  before  the  days  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, and  that  it  was  the  sign  for  the  "red" 
division  of  a  fleet  to  give  battle.  However 
this  may  be,  it  is  not  at  all  likely  that  such 
an  English  signal  flag  had  ever  been  dis- 
played in  American  waters,  and  it  is  prac- 
tically certain  that  the  English  signal  had 
nothing  whatever  to  do  in  suggesting  the 
flag  hoisted  over  General  Washington's  army 
in  1776. 


CHAPTEK  II. 

THE   FLAG    OF   THE    UNITED    STATES    OF 
AMERICA,  1777-1916. 

ON  the  2d  of  July,  1776,  the  American 
Congress  resolved  u  that  these  united  colonies 
are,  and  of  right  ought  to  be,  free  and  inde- 
pendent States  ;  and  that  all  political  connec- 
tion between  us  and  the  state  of  Great  Britain 
is,  and  ought  to  be,  totally  dissolved."  On 
the  4th  of  July  a  declaration  of  independence 
was  adopted  by  the  Congress,  and  sent  out 
under  its  authority,  to  announce  to  all  other 
nations  that  the  United  States  of  America 
claimed  a  place  among  them.  On  this  4th 
of  July  the  nation  was  born.  Its  flag,  the 
visible  symbol  of  its  power,  was  not  adopted 
till  1777. 

On  the  14th  of  June,  1777,  Congress  re- 
solved "  that  the  flag  of  the  thirteen  United 
States  be  thirteen  stripes,  alternate  red  and 
white;  that  the  union  be  thirteen  stars, 


THE  UNITED  STATES  FLAG  OF   1777-1795.     29 

white   in  a  blue  field,  representing  a  new 
constellation." 

The  national  flag — our  national  flag- 
grew  in  the  most  direct  way  out  of  the  ban- 
ners that  had  waved  over  the  colonists.  The 


FIG.  9.— The  flag  of  the  United  States  of  America,  1777-1795. 

flag  of  the  United  Colonies  had  thirteen 
stripes,  one  for  each  colony,  and  the  stripes 
were  alternate  red  and  w^hite.  This  part  of 
the  old  flag  remained  unchanged  in  the  new 
one.  Each  colony  retained  its  stripe. 

The  flag  of  the  colonies,  in  its  union,  had 
displayed  the  king's  colors.  There  was  now  no 
longer  a  king  in  America,  but  a  new  Union 


30  THE  AMERICAN  FLAG. 

had  arisen — a  Union  of  thirteen  States — no 
longer  a  Union  of  kingdoms.  The  union  of 
the  old  flag  had  been  the  crosses  of  St. 
George  and  St.  Andrew  conjoined  on  a  blue 
field.  The  new  union  was  a  circle  of  silver 
stars  in  a  blue  sky — "  a  new  constellation." 

The  flag  of  the  United  States  was  de- 
rived from  the  flag  of  the  United  Colonies 
in  the  simplest  and  most  natural  manner. 
The  old  flag  had  expressed  the  hopes  and  as- 
pirations of  thirteen  colonies  which  had  united 
in  order  to  secure  justice  from  their  king  and 
fellow-countrymen  in  England.  The  new 
flag  expressed  the  determined  resolve  of  the 
same  thirteen  colonies — now  become  sover- 
eign States — to  form  a  permanent  Union,  and 
to  take  their  place  among  the  nations  of  the 
world.  They  were  no  longer  Englishmen : 
they  were  Americans. 

Many  suggestions  have  been  made  to  ac- 
count for  the  appearance  of  stars  or  of  stripes 
in  the  new  flag.  It  seems  unnecessary  to 
seek  for  any  expl  anal  ion  other  than  the  one 
that  has  just  been  given.  The  old  flag  of 
the  United  Colonies  expressed  the  feelings 
and  aspirations  of  the  revolted  English  colo- 
nists. They  were  willing  .to  remain  as  sub- 


THE  UNITED  STATES  FLAG  OF  1777-1795.       31 

jects  of  the  English  king,  but  they  had  united 
to  secure  justice.  The  new  flag  expressed 
their  firm  resolve  to  throw  off  the  yoke  of 
England,  and  to  become  a  new  nation.  The 
symbols  of  each  flag  exactly  expressed  the 
feeling  of  the  men  who  bore  it. 

There  is  a  resemblance  between  the  colors 
and  symbols  of  the  new  flag  and  the  sym- 
bols borne  on  the  coat  of  arms  of  General 
Washington  that  is  worthy  of  remark.  Gen- 
eral Washington  was  a  descendant  of  an  Eng- 
lish family,  and  his  ancestors  bore  a  coat  of 
arms  that  he  himself  used  as  a  seal,  and  for 
a  bookplate. 

It  has  been  supposed  that  the  stars  of  the 
American  flag  were  suggested  by  the  three 
stars  of  this  coat  of  arms,  and  this  is  not  im- 
possible. General  Washington  was  in  Phila- 
delphia in  June,  1777,  and  he  is  said  to  have 
engaged  Mrs.  John  Ross,  at  that  time,  to 
make  the  first  flag,  though  this  is  not  abso- 
lutely certain. 

However  this  may  be,  it  is  known  that 
the  American  flag  of  thirteen  stars  and  of 
thirteen  stripes  was  displayed  at  the  siege  of 
Fort  Stanwix  in  August,  1777 ;  at  the  battle 
of  Brandywine  on  September  llth;  at  Ger 


THE  AMERICAN  FLAG. 


mantown  on  the  4th  of  October ;  at  the  sur- 
render of  the  British  under  General  Burgoyne 
on  October  17th.  The  flag  had  been  adopted 


Fio.  10. — The  coat  of  arms  (bookplate)  of  General  George 
Washington.  The  field  of  the  shield  is  white  (argent),  the 
two  bars  are  red  (gules),  as  well  as  the  three  stars. 

in  June  of  the  same  year.  The  vessels  of 
the  American  navy  flew  this  flag  on  the  high 
seas,  and  their  victories  made  it  respected 
everywhere. 


THE  UNITED  STATES  FLAG  OF   1777-1795.       33 

It  is  curious  to  note  that  so  late  as  1784 
the  American  flag  was  not  always  repre- 
sented correctly  in  drawings  made  by  for- 
eigners. In  a  German  publication  of  that 
year  *  the  union  is  made  to  cover  the  upper 
six  stripes  only  (instead  of  seven),  though 
the  drawing  is  otherwise  accurate.  Let  the 
American  child  who  is  reading  this  chapter 
stop  here  and  try  to  draw  the  flag  of  his 
country  without  looking  at  any  of  the  illus- 
trations. Every  one  should  be  able  to  do 
this. 

The  treaty  of  peace  between  England 
and  the  United  States  was  signed  (at  Paris, 
France)  on  September  3,  1783.  This  was 
the  acknowledgment  by  Great  Britain  of 
the  independence  of  her  former  colonies; 
and  the  other  nations  of  Europe  stood  by 
consenting.  Our  flag  was  admitted,  at  that 
time,  on  equal  terms  with  the  standards  of 
ancient  kingdoms  and  states,  to  the  company 
of  the  banners  of  the  world. 

In  1791  Vermont  was  admitted  to  the 
Union,  and  in  1792  Kentucky  became  a 
State.  No  change  was  made  in  the  national 

*  Sprengel's  Allgemeines  Taschenbuch  fiir  1784  in  the 
Lenox  Library  of  New  York  city. 
4 


34:  THE  AMERICAN  FLAG. 

flag  till  1794,  when  Congress  ordered  "that 
from  and  after  the  first  day  of  May,  1795, 
the  flag  of  the  United  States  be  fifteen 


Pio.  11.— The  flag  of  the  United  States  from  1795  to  1818. 
The  War  of  1812  was  fought  under  this  flag. 

stripes,  alternate  red  and  white  ;  and  that 
the  union  be  fifteen  stars,  white  in  a  blue 
field." 

Tennessee  was  admitted  to  the  Union  in 
1796,  Ohio  in  1802,  Louisiana  in  1812,  In- 
diana in  1816,  Mississippi  in  1817,  and  Illi- 
nois in  1818,  making  twenty  States  in  all. 
It  was  plain  that  the  vast  territory  of  the 
United  States  would  be  carved  up  into  other 


THE  UNITED  STATES  FLAG  SINCE  1818.        35 

States  from  time  to  time.     Accordingly,  in 
April,  1818,  the  Congress  passed 


ACT  TO  ESTABLISH  THE  FLAG  OF  THE 
UNITED  STATES. 

"  SECTION  1.  Be  it  enacted,  etc.,  That  from 
and  after  the  fourth  day  of  July  next,  the 
flag  of  the  United  States  be  thirteen  horizon- 
tal stripes,  alternate  red  and  white  ;  that  the 
Union  have  twenty  stars,  white  in  a  blue  field. 

"  Section  2.  And  be  it  further  enacted, 
That  on  the  admission  of  every  new  State 
into  the  Union,  one  star  be  added  to  the 
union  of  the  flag;  and  that  such  addition 
shall  take  effect  on  the  fourth  of  July  next 
succeeding  such  admission.  Approved,  April 
4,  1818." 

No  changes  (other  than  the  addition  of 
new  stars)  have  been  made  in  the  national 
flag  since  1818,  The  stars  have  been  added, 
one  by  one,  till  in  1916  there  were  forty-eight 
in  all.  Every  State  has  its  star;  each  of  the 
original  thirteen  States  has  its  stripe.  The 
territories  are  not  represented  in  the  flag. 
Plate  I,  the  frontispiece,  represents  the  na- 
tional flag  on  July  4,  1915.  Stars  were  added 


36  THE  AMERICAN  FLAG 

for  Utah,  1896;  Oklahoma,  1907;  and  New 
Mexico  and  Arizona,  both  1912. 


FIG.  12.— The  flag  of  the  United  States  in  1916. 
It  has  forty-eight  stars. 

So  long  as  the  United  States  exists  the  flag 
will  remain  in  its  present  form,  except  that 
new  stars  will  be  displayed  as  the  new  States 
come  in.  It  will  forever  exhibit  the  origin 
of  the  nation  from  the  thirteen  colonies,  and 
its  growth  into  a  Union  of  sovereign  States. 

The  field  of  the  flag  is  already  somewhat 
crowded  with  its  constellation  of  forty-eight 
stars,  and  it  is  not  too  soon  to  inquire  what  is 
to  be  done  if  ten  more  States  are  admitted 
into  the  Union.  Fifty-eight  stars  arranged 
in  rows  would  confuse  the  field,  and  take 
away  the  distinctness,  and  some  of  the  dig- 


THE   FLAG  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.          37 

nity,  of  the  flag.  A  very  simple  solution 
would  be  to  group  the  stars  into  one  large 
star.  At  a  distance  only  one  star  would 
show.  Near  by  it  would  be  seen  that  this 
one  star  was  made  up  of  many  small  ones. 
The  only  possible  objection  to  this  plan  is 
that  our  flag  would  then  somewhat  resemble 
the  ensign  of  Liberia  (which  has  one  star 
and  eleven  stripes — see  Plate  IX) ;  but  it 
appeal's  that  this  objection  is  not  of  much 
weight. 

The  frontispiece  gives  a  true  representa- 
tion of  the  flag  both  as  to  colors  and  as  to 
proportions.  Flags  are  made  of  wool  "  bunt- 
ing." The  stars  are  white,  sewed  to  the  blue 
canton  on  both  sides.  The  "  heading  "  (that 
part  of  the  flag  nearest  the  staff)  is  of  strong 
canvas,  with  two  holes,  brass-rimmed  ("grom- 
mets  "),  for  the  "  halyards  "  (ropes). 

The  garrison-flag,  36  by  20  feet,  is  the 
official  flag  at  all  army  posts.  The  post-flag 
is  20  by  10  feet,  and  the  storm-flag  is  8  feet 
by  4  feet  2  inches.* 


*  The  usual  price  of  a  flag  4  feet  long  is  about  $1.75; 
for  one  6  feet  long  about  $4.50;  for  one  12  feet  long  about 
$10;  for  one  20  feet  long  about  $25;  for  one  40  feet  long 
about  $80T 


38  THE  AMERICAN  FLAG. 

In  recent  years  there  has  been  a  strong 
sentiment  that  the  flag  of  the  United  States 
is  too  sacred  an  emblem  to  be  used  for  any 
purpose  other  than  that  of  patriotic  intent, 
and  that  its  employment  as  an  embellish- 
ment of  advertisements,  commercial  labels, 
and  miscellaneous  trade-marks  should  be 
prohibited  by  law.  This  sentiment  has  so 
deeply  touched  the  great  heart  of  American 
citizenship  that  in  several  States  there  has 
been  legislation  to  penalize  anyone  using  it 
for  any  business  purpose  whatever. 

The  public  school  authorities  in  most  of 
the  States  now  require  a  display  of  the  flag 
on  the  outside  of  the  buildings,  while  the 
schools  are  in  session,  and  a  daily  salute  to 
the  flag  by  the  pupils  before  beginning  their 
regular  exercises. 

The  flag  of  the  United  States  was  offi- 
cially adopted  on  June  14, 1777,  and  through 
the  influence  of  some  of  the  patriotic 
societies  the  anniversary  of  that  event  has 
been  designated  by  many  of  the  State  legis- 
latures as  "Flag  Day"  since  1893,  and  is 
observed  by  a  general  display  of  the  flag. 

There  are  special  flags  for  some  of  the 
departments  at  Washington,  and  for  some  of 


SPECIAL  FLAGS  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.     39 

the  higher  officers  of  the  government.  For 
instance,  the  revenue  marine  is  a  branch  of 
the  Treasury  Department.  Its  officers  are 
charged  with  the  duty  of  boarding  vessels 
as  they  enter  our  harbors  and  with  the  en- 
forcement of  the  laws  of  the  United  States 
relating  to  customs  duties,  etc.  The  reve- 
nue marine  has  a  distinguishing  flag  for  its 
vessels.  The  national  ensign  is  also  dis- 
played. 

The  distinguishing  flag  of  the  revenue 
marine  is  shown  in  Plate  II.  The  yachts 
belonging  to  American  citizens  have  a  special 
flag  that  gives  them  certain  privileges.  The 
ensign  of  American  yachts  at  home  or  abroad 
is  also  shown  in  Plate  II.  The  national  en- 
sign, the  distinguishing  flag  of  the  revenue 
marine  and  the  yacht  flag,  may  be  seen  in 
almost  every  American  port,  and  they  are 
mentioned  here  for  this  reason. 

Flags  are  extensively  used  in  the  navy 
and  in  the  army  for  signals,  and  some  account 
of  signal  flags  is  given  in  the  second  part  of 
this  book.  (See  Plate  IV.)  Every  naval 
ship  has  a  "  code  book,"  by  means  of  which 
she  can  convey  messages  to  other  ships  (if 
they  have  the  same  book).  All  merchant 


40  THE  AMERICAN  FLAG. 

ships  use  a  mercantile  code  for  a  like  pur- 
pose. 

The  ships  of  our  navy  fly  the  national 
ensign,  and  also  the  "jack,"  which  is  nothing 
but  the  union  of  the  flag — a  blue  field  with 
white  stars.  It  is  shown  in  Plate  II.  They 
also  fly  a  personal  flag  for  the  commander; 
these  differ  for  a  captain,  a  rear-admiral,  a 
vice-admiral,  and  the  admiral.  If  the 
Secretary  of  the  Navy,  or  the  President  of 
the  United  States  is  on  board  their  personal 
flags  are  displayed.  The  President's  flag  is 
also  shown  in  Plate  II. 

The  flags  of  a  ship  tell  all  the  other  ships 
of  a  squadron,  or  of  foreign  navies,  something 
about  her  mission,  her  commander,  her  pas- 
sengers, etc.  She  has  a  signal  alphabet  of 
flags  for  use  in  peace  or  war.  The  flags  are 
used  by  day,  and  signal  lights  (blue,  white, 
green,  red)  by  night. 

The  army,  too,  has  distinguishing  flags 
for  its  regiments  of  engineers,  artillery,  in- 
fantry, and  cavalry.  Each  regiment  has  its 
own  "regimental  color"  (a  blue  silk  flag  for 
the  infantry,  a  red  for  the  artillery,  a  yellow 
for  the  cavalry,  with  the  American  eagle  and 
coat  of  arms),  and  also  carries  a  special 


SPECIAL  UNITED  STATES  SERVICE  FLAGS. 

The  President:     All  blue,  with   National   Coat-of- 

arms  in  center. 
Secretary  of  the  Navy:    All  blue,  with  white  star  in 

each  corner  and  a  foul  anchor  in  the  center. 
Admiral:     All  blue,  with  four  white  stars  as  if  at 

ends  of  an  upright  cross. 
Vice-Admirals :    All  blue,  with  three  white  stars  in 

triangular  form. 
Rear- Admirals :    All  blue,  with  two  white  stars,  one 

above  the  other,  in  center. 

Captains:    All  blue,  with  one  white  star  in  center. 
Senior  Officer  Present  (naval)  :    Blue  triangle  point- 
ing outward. 
Naval  Reserve:    Blue  with  yellow  square  in  center 

bearing  an  anchor. 
Revenue    Marine    Service:      Sixteen    perpendicular 

stripes  alternating  red  and  white;  spread  eagle 

with  thirteen  stars  in  upper  left-hand  corner. 
Lighthouse  Service:     Triangular,  with  red  border; 

center  white  with  lighthouse  in  blue. 
Quarantine:     All  yellow. 
Powder  Ships  and  Magazines:    All  red. 
Consular  Service:    All  blue,  with  large  white  letter 

0  surrounded  by  thirteen  small  white  stars  in 

center. 
Naval  Dispatch  Service:    All  white,  with  five  crosses 

in  blue. 
Lieutenant-General:    All  red,  with  three  white  stars 

in  a  row. 

Major-Generals:    All  red,  with  two  white  stars. 
Brigadier-Generals:    All  red,  with  one  white  star  in 

center. 

41 


42  THE  AMERICAN  FLAG. 

national  flag  about  six  feet  square.  On 
the  stripes  are  written  the  names  of  the 
battles  in  which  the  regiment  has  taken 
part. 

One  of  the  older  regiments  displays  a 
proud  history  in  this  way.  Its  flag  may 
bear  the  names  of  New  Orleans  (1815), 
Buena  Vista  (1847),  and  a  host  of  hard- 
fought  battles  of  the  civil  war,  as  well  as 
Santiago  or  Manila  (1898).  Regiments  are 
united  into  brigades  (of  three  or  more  regi- 
ments), brigades  into  divisions  (of  three  or 
more  brigades),  divisions  into  army  corps  (of 
three  or  more  divisions),  and  each  of  these 
bodies  has  its  distinguishing  flag.  The  militia 
regiments  of  the  various  State  troops  carry 
the  national  colors,  and  they  usually  carry 
the  flag  of  their  State  also. 

In  both  army  and  navy  the  greatest  re- 
spect is  paid  to  the  flag.  The  interior  loy- 
alty that  every  American  should  feel  is  ex- 
pressed by  outward  signs  of  respect.  In  an 
army  camp  the  colors  are  brought  to  the 
"  color  line "  (a  line  of  stacked  rifles  in  the 
front  of  the  camp)  at  guard  mounting  in  the 
morning,  and  they  are  laid  on  the  line  of 
guns.  Whoever  crosses  that  line  during  the 


HONORS  PAID  TO  THE  FLAG.       43 

day  must  salute  the  colors  by  touching  his 
cap. 

At  evening  parade  the  colors  are  brought, 
under  the  escort  of  the  "color  guard,"  to 
their  place  in  the  line  of  battle.  The  regi- 
ment salutes  them,  the  band  plays  The  Star- 
spangled  Banner,  and  all  visitors  to  the  camp 
are  expected  to  rise  and  remain  standing 
while  the  band  is  playing  the  national  an- 
them. At  all  military  posts,  forts,  etc.,  the 
flag  is  hoisted  at  reveille,  and  remains  flying 
till  sunset. 

On  board  of  an  American  ship  of  war 
there  is  a  similar  etiquette.  The  flag  is 
hoisted  at  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning  with 
ceremony,  and  remains  flying  till  sunset. 
Every  one  who  comes  on  the  quarter  deck 
salutes  by  touching  his  cap.  It  is  really  a 
salute  to  the  colors.  Merchant  vessels  salute 
each  other  by  lowering  their  flags  and  then 
quickly  hoisting  them  again — by  "  dipping 
the  flag,"  as  it  is  called.  A  man-of-war 
should  never  lower  her  flag  except  to  sur- 
render, or  as  a  courtesy  to  another  vessel 
that  has  first  given  a  like  salute. 

A  ship  in  distress  hoists  its  flag  with  the 
union  down.  A  flag  at  half  mast  is  a  sign  of 


44  THE  AMERICAN  FLAG. 

mourning.*  A  white  flag  is  everywhere  rec- 
ognized as  a  signal  of  peace.  A  yellow  flag 
(a  hospital  flag)  is  a  sign  that  wounded  men, 
or  the  sick,  are  sheltered  by  it.  A  white 
flag  bearing  a  red  cross  is  the  standard  of 
the  Geneva  Red  Cross  Association  for  the 
relief  of  the  wounded.  A  black  flag  is  the 
flag  of  pirates,  and  has  often  been  flown  by 
the  buccaneers  of  the  Spanish  Main,  either 
with  or  without  the  skull  and  cross  bones. 
The  red  flag  has  of  late  years  come  to  be 
considered  the  flag  of  Socialists  or  of  anarch- 
ists. The  second  part  of  this  book  gives 
more  particulars  about  these  matters. 

THE    GREAT   SEAL    OF   THE    UNITED    STATES. 

The  design  for  the  flag  of  the  United 
States  was  adopted  in  1777.  On  the  4th 
of  July,  1776,  a  Committee  of  Congress  was 
appointed  "  to  prepare  a  device  for  a  seal  of 
the  United  States  of  North  f  America." 

*  The  flag  should  be  hoisted  at  half  mast  on  Decoration 
Day  (May  30th)  and  kept  there  until  noon,  when  it  should  be 
run  to  the  top  of  the  staff  and  only  lowered  at  sunset. 

f  It  is  to  be  noted  that  this  word  is  not  a  part  of  the  official 
name  of  the  country,  which  is  the  United  States  of  America. 
If  the  whole  of  South  America  were  to  join  the  Union,  no 
change  in  the  name  of  the  country  would  be  necessary.  From 


UNITED   STATES  FLAG 


U.S.  UNION 


U    S   PMLSWCNTS  rLAO 


V.  3   RC.VCHI/E  fLAC 


YACHT  CN3IGH.   USA 


CUBA 


HAWAIIAN 

(NOW  UNITED  STATES) 


THE  GREAT  SEAL  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.      45 


The  seal  was  not  adopted  till  1782,  how 
ever.  The  reader  should  look  carefully  at 
the  illustration.  The  coins  of  the  United 
States  bear  these 
devices  in  whole 
or  in  part.* 

The  coat  of 
arms  of  the  United 
States  is  that  por- 
tion of  the  illus- 
tration inside  the 
border.  The  shield 
is  argent  (white)  Pl<3  14_The  great  seal  rf  the 

United    States    of    America, 
adopted  in  1782. 

azure  "  chief."  It  is  borne  on  the  breast  of 
an  American  eagle,  holding  in  his  dexter 
talon  an  olive  branch  with  thirteen  leaves 
and  fruits  (in  sign  of  peace),  and  in  his  sin- 
ister a  sheaf  of  as  many  arrows  (in  menace 
of  war).  The  eagle,  the  olive,  and  the  arrows 
are  blazoned  in  their  proper  colors. 

the  beginning  our  people  have  called  themselves  "Ameri- 
cans," not  " North  Americans";  and  we  always  speak  of  our 
country  as  "  America." 

*  They  are  best  seen  on  the  reverse  side  of  the  twenty-dol- 
lar gold  piece.  Of  late  years  the  motto  "  In  God  we  Trust "  has 
been  added  to  our  coins.  It  is  no  part  of  the  coat  of  arms. 


six    pallets    gules 
(red)      with 


an 


46  THE  AMERICAN  FLAG. 

Above  the  eagle's  head  is  an  azure  sky 
with  silver  stars  arranged  in  groups  of  one, 
four,  three,  four,  one  stars.  They  are  sur- 
rounded by  a  golden  halo,  and  encircled  with 
clouds.  In  the  beak  of  the  eagle  is  a  golden 
scroll  bearing  the  motto  E  pluribus  Unum 
("  out  of  many,  one  "  —that  is,  one  Union  has 
been  formed  out  of  many  States). 

There  are  several  points  to  be  noticed 
in  comparing  the  arms  (seal)  with  the  flag. 
The  outer  edges  of  the  shield  of  the  coat 
of  arms  are  argent  (white)  ;  the  outer  stripes 
of  the  flag  are  gules  (red).  The  "  chief " 
of  the  arms,  like  the  "  canton  "  of  the  flag, 
is  blue;  but  it  does  not  bear  any  stars. 
Thirteen  stars  are  displayed  above  the 
head  of  the  eagle  in  the  seal,  while  the 
flag  bears  forty-eight  stars  at  present,  and 
will  bear  other  stars  in  the  future.  The 
flag  will  be  changed  from  time  to  time. 
The  seal  will  remain  in  the  future  as  it 
was  in  1782. 

The  golden  halo  round  the  stars  of  the 
seal  and  the  clouds  encircling  the  halo  do  not 
appear  in  the  flag,  nor  does  the  olive  branch, 
the  sheaf  of  arrows,  or  the  motto.  The 
eagle  appears  in  the  flag  of  the  revenue- 


NATIONAL  SONGS  OF  AMERICA.          47 

marine  service,  but  not  in  the  national  colors. 
These  small  differences  are  worthy  of  re- 
mark, because  every  American  child  should 
be  entirely  familiar  with  the  emblems  of  his 
own  country.* 

NATIONAL    SONGS    OF   AMEEICA. 

Properly  speaking,  America  has  no  na- 
tional song.  The  two  poems  that  follow, 
The  Star-spangled  Banner  and  The  Amer- 
ican Flag;  are  the  best  known  among  many 
verses  of  the  kind.  The  first  of  them — 
The  Star-spangler1  Banner — comes  nearer 
to  being  a  really  national  song  than  any 
other.  It  is  regularly  played  by  the  bands 
on  our  war  vessels,  and  at  military  posts  at 
evening  parade,  and  is  recognized  by  foreign 
countries  as  the  nation's  anthem. 

The  country  is  yet  waiting  for  a  thor- 
oughly representative  poem  that  shall  ex- 
press the  whole  of  the  nation's  aspirations, 
and  that  shall  be  set  to  original  and  stir- 
ring music.  Until  we  have  such  verses 

*  Both  the  seal  and  the  flag  of  the  United  States  are  com- 
posed according  to  the  strictest  laws  of  heraldry :  a  set  of  rules 
that  governs  such  matters.  Its  rules  date  from  the  Crusades. 
The  seals  of  some  of  the  States  do  not  follow  any  rules  at  all, 
and  are  sadly  in  need  of  change. 


48  THE  AMERICAN  FLAG. 

from  an  American  poet,  and  such  original 
music  from  one  of  our  own  composers,  the 
Star-spangled  Banner  will  probably  stand 
for  our  national  song. 

Its  chief  lack  as  a  poem  is  that  it  describes 
a  single  incident  only.  Its  tune  was  borrowed 
from  a  piece  of  music  for  the  flute  (Ana- 
creon  in  Heaven)  and  is  quite  difficult  to 
sing.  Not  one  American  in  a  thousand 
knows  the  words  of  the  poem,  and  the  air 
is  not  accurately  known  by  most  persons. 
The  words  of  a  truly  national  hymn  should 
be  in  the  memory  of  every  one,  and  its  air 
should  be  stirring  and  easily  remembered 
and  sung. 

Yankee  Doodle — with  trivial  words  and 
music  borrowed  from  an  English  tune  of  the 
time  of  Charles  II — was  a  favorite  during  the 
War  of  the  American  Kevolution.  The  Star- 
spangled  Banner  owes  its  origin  to  an  inci- 
dent of  the  War  of  1812.  The  war  of  the 
rebellion  (1861-65)  produced  hundreds  of 
war  songs,  some  of  them  of  real  excellence. 
No  truly  national  song  could  arise,  of  course, 
out  of  a  civil  war,  which  divided  the  people 
among  themselves,  and  set  brother  at  strife 
with  brother. 


NATIONAL  SONGS  OF  AMERICA.  49 

We  are  still  waiting  for  a  national  song 
that  shall  be  dignified,  serious,  expressive  of 
the  aspirations  and  of  the  ideals  of  the  whole 
people.  It  must  not  be  boastful ;  it  must 
not  be  sanguinary ;  it  must  not  breathe  ven- 
geance. We  are  a  serious-mind ed.  and  a  re- 
ligious people,  devoted  to  ideals  of  justice,  of 
equal  law,  of  absolute  fair  dealing,  of  charity 
to  our  fellow  men. 

Our  national  anthem,  when  it  is  written, 
must  express  the  nation's  trust  in  God;  its 
devout  confidence  in  a  just  cause ;  its  devo- 
tion to  right ;  its  determination  to  die  rather 
than  to  submit  to  injustice  or  to  wrong. 
Any  trivial  boastful  ness,  any  childish  delight 
in  the  pomp  and  circumstance  of  war,  any 
pleasure  in  vengeance,  is  unworthy  and  un- 
dignified. The  national  song  of  America 
should  breathe  the  spirit  of  a  Washington 
and  of  a  Lincoln,  not  that  of  a  Caesar  or  of  a 
Napoleon. 

Of  late  years,  some  enthusiasts  have  taken 
to  calling  the  flag  of  our  country  by  the 
name  of  "  Old  Glory."  There  is  no  question 
that  those  who  use  this  name  intend  to  ex- 
press their  affection  for  the  national  symbol, 
and  in  so  far  no  objection  can  be  made  to 


50  THE  AMERICAN  FLAG. 

the  epithet.  But  there  is  also  no  doubt 
that  the  excessive  familiarity  and  lack  of 
respect  in  the  phrase  offends,  to  some  de- 
gree, against  good  taste.  It  expresses  a  part, 
but  only  a  part,  of  the  true  feeling  of  the 
nation. 

There  is  certainly  a  shade  of  boastfulness  in 
the  "  Glory  "  ;  and  there  is  too  much  triviality 
and  familiarity  in  the  "  Old."  There  is  a  total 
lack  of  dignity  in  the  combination.  A  flag 
represents  an  ideal  that  is,  in  its  degree, 
sacred,  somewhat  as  the  symbol  of  the  cross 
is  sacred.  Respect,  reverence,  devotion,  are 
called  for,  such  as  serious  men  can  give ;  not 
the  trivial  endearments  of  boon  companions 
or  of  thoughtless  children. 

President  Lincoln  was  a  true  martyr  and 
hero;  he  became  the  idol  of  his  countrymen. 
No  doubt  some  of  those  who  really  venerated 
his  virtues  and  high-mindedness  expressed 
their  belief  in  his  wisdom  and  patriotism  by 
some  such  phrase  as,  "Old  Lincoln — Old 
Abe — will  rule  the  country  right."  There  is 
nothing  but  praise  to  give  to  the  spirit  that 
prompted  homely  words  of  the  sort.  Even 
the  form  of  it  might  be  pardoned  so  long  as 
the  great  President  was  still  with  us.  After 


NATIONAL  SONGS  OF  AMERICA.  51 

he  was  laid  in  his  martyr's  grave  who  can 
doubt  that  a  phrase  in  this  form  would  grate 
—solely  on  account  of  its  form — most  harshly 
on  the  ear  ?  A  trivial  phrase  of  homely  and 
affectionate  familiarity  is  no  longer  ade- 
quate. Language  at  once  more  respectful, 
more  serious,  more  dignified,  more  formal, 
is  demanded. 

In  the  same  way  our  flag,  which  is,  we 
hope,  not  for  a  day  but  for  all  time,  must 
not  be  spoken  of  as  if  it  were  a  boon  com- 
panion, but  rather  a  sacred  symbol  of  great 
ideals.  As  we  demand  for  our  American 
ideals  the  respect  that  they  deserve,  so  we 
should  exact  the  forms  of  respect  for  the 
flag  that  represents  them.  The  flag  is  not 
the  familiar  possession  of  any  man  or  of  any 
company  of  men.  It  is  the  symbol  of  the 
whole  nation  and  it  represents  its  long  his- 
tory in  the  past  and  the  totality  of  its  aspira- 
tions for  the  future.  It  should  receive  from 
each  one  of  us  every  kind  of  respect ;  the  re- 
spect of  dignified  and  measured  phrase  as  well 
as  the  interior  reverence  which  can  only  find 
its  fit  expression  in  this  way. 


52  THE  AMERICAN  FLAG. 


THE  STAR-SPANGLED  BANNER. 
BY  FRANCIS  SCOTT  KEY.* 

I. 

Oh  !  say,  can  you  see  by  the  dawn's  early  light 
What  so  proudly  we  hailed  at  the  twilight's  last 

gleaming, 
Whose  broad  stripes  and  bright  stars  through  the 

perilous  fight, 
O'er  the  ramparts  we  watched,  were  so  gallantly 

streaming  ? 
And  the  rockets'  red  glare,  the  bombs  bursting  in 

air, 
Gave  proof  through  the  night  that  our  flag  was  still 

there. 

Oh  !  say,  does  the  star-spangled  banner  yet  wave 
O'er  the  land  of  the  free  and  the  home  of  the  brave  ? 

*  Francis  Scott  Key,  the  poet,  was  born  in  Maryland  in 
1779,  and  died  in  1843.  During  the  war  of  1812-15  between 
the  United  States  and  Great  Britain  the  English  fleet  bom- 
barded Fort  McHenry,  near  Baltimore,  on  September  13,  1814. 
During  the  whole  of  that  day  and  night  he  witnessed  the  Brit- 
ish bombardment  of  the  fort ;  and  on  the  following  morning 
he  and  his  American  friends  saw  with  delight  that  the  fort 
was  still  ours;  and  that  the  American  flag,  torn  with  shot  and 
shell,  was  still  waving  in  its  place.  The  story  is  told  in  the 
poem.  The  flag  that  flew  at  Fort  McHenry  still  exists,  and 
was  exhibited  at  the  Centennial  Exhibition  in  I'liilaili-lj.liia 
in  1876  full  of  rents  made  by  the  enemy's  cannonade.  A 
statue  to  Francis  Scott  Key  stands  in  Golden  Gate  Park  in 
San  Francisco. 


NATIONAL  SONGS  OP  AMERICA.  53 

II. 
On  the  shore,  dimly  seen  through  the  mists  of  the 

deep, 
Where  the  foe's  haughty  host  in  dread  silence 

reposes ; 
What  is  that  which  the  breeze,  o'er  the  towering 

steep, 

As  it  fitfully  blows,  half  conceals,  half  discloses  ? 
Now  it  catches  the  gleam  of  the  morning's  first 

beam, 

In  full  glory  reflected  now  shines  in  the  stream — 
'Tis  the  star-spangled  banner ;  oh  !  long  may  it  wave 
O'er  the  land  of  the  free  and  the  home  of  the  brave. 

in. 
And  where  is  that  band  who  so  vauntingly  swore 

That  the  havoc  of  war  and  the  battle's  confusion, 
A  home  and  a  country  should  leave  us  no  more  ? 

Their  blood  has  washed  out  their  foul  footsteps' 

pollution. 

No  refuge  could  save  the  hireling  and  slave 
From  the  terror  of  flight,  or  the  gloom  of  the  grave, 
And  the  star-spangled  banner  in  triumph  doth  wave 
O'er  the  land  of  the  free  and  the  home  of  the  brave. 

IV. 

Oh !  thus  be  it  ever  when  freemen  shall  stand 
Between  their  loved  homes  and  the  war's  desola- 
tion; 
Blest  with  victory  and  peace,  may  the  Heav'n-res- 

cued  land 

Praise  the  Power  that  hath  made  and  preserved 
us  a  nation. 


54:  THE  AMERICAN  FLAG. 

Then  conquer  we  must  when  our  cause  it  is  just, 
And  this  be  our  motto,  "  In  God  is  our  Trust." 
And  the  star-spangled  banner  in  triumph  shall  wavt 
O'er  the  land  of  the  free  and  the  home  of  the  brave. 


THE  AMERICAN  FLAG. 
BY  JOSEPH  RODMAN  DRAKE.* 


When  Freedom  from  her  mountain  height, 
Unfurled  her  standard  to  the  air, 

She  tore  the  azure  robe  of  night, 
And  set  the  stars  of  glory  there. 

She  mingled  with  its  gorgeous  dyes 

The  milky  baldric  f  of  the  skies, 

And  striped  its  pure,  celestial  white 

With  streakings  of  the  morning's  light ; 

Then  from  her  mansion  in  the  sun 

She  called  her  eagle-bearer  down, 

And  gave  into  his  mighty  hand 

The  symbol  of  her  chosen  land. 

II. 

Majestic  monarch  of  the  cloud ! 

Who  rear'st  aloft  thy  eagle  form 
To  hear  the  tempest  trumpings  loud, 
And  see  the  lightning  lances  driven, 

*  Joseph  Rodman  Drake,  the  poet,  was  born  in  New  York 
in  1795,  and  died  in  1820.    The  poem  was  written  in  1819. 
f  Baldric  =  a  shoulder  belt  for  a  sword. 


NATIONAL  SONGS  OF  AMERICA.  55 

When  stride  the  warriors  of  the  storm, 
And  rolls  the  thunder-drum  of  Heaven  I 
Child  of  the  Sun  !  *  to  thee  'tis  given 

To  guard  the  banner  of  the  free  I 
To  hover  in  the  sulphur  smoke, 
To  ward  away  the  battle  stroke, 
And  bid  its  blendings  shine  afar, 
Like  rainbows  on  the  cloud  of  war, 
The  harbingers  f  of  victory. 

in. 

Flag  of  the  brave  !  thy  folds  shall  fly 
The  sign  of  hope  and  triumph  high ; 
When  speaks  the  trumpet's  signal  tone, 
And  the  long  line  \  comes  gleaming  on, 
Ere  yet  the  life-blood,  warm  and  wet,  , 

Has  dimmed  the  glistening  bayonet, 
Each  soldier's  eye  shall  brightly  turn 
To  where  thy  sky-born  glories  burn ; 
And,  as  his  springy  steps  advance, 
Catch  war  and  vengeance  from  the  glance ; 
And  when  the  cannon-mouthings  loud 
Heave  in  wild  wreaths  the  battle  shroud, 
And  gory  sabers  rise  and  fall, 
Like  shoots  of  flame  on  midnight's  pall — 
Then  shall  thy  meteor  glances  glow, 

And  cowering  foes  shall  sink  beneath 
Each  gallant  arm  that  strikes  below 

That  lovely  messenger  of  death ! 

*  Child  of  the  Sun  =  the  eagle,  that  can  gaze  upon  the  sun 
without  averting  its  eyes. 

f  Harbingers  =  forerunners ;  heralds. 
\  The  long  advancing  line  of  soldiers. 


56  THE  AMERICAN  FLAG. 

IV. 

Flag  of  the  seas  !  on  Ocean's  wave 
Thy  stars  shall  glitter  o'er  the  brave ; 
When  death,  careering  on  the  gale, 
Sweeps  darkly  round  the  bellied  sail, 
And  frighted  waves  rush  wildly  back, 
Before  the  broadside's  reeling  rack,* 
Each  dying  wanderer  of  the  sea 
Shall  look  at  once  to  Heaven  and  thee, 
And  smile  to  see  thy  splendors  fly 
In  triumph  o'er  his  closing  eye. 

v. 
Flag  of  the  free  heart's  hope  and  home ! 

By  angel's  hands  to  valor  given ; 
Thy  stars  have  lit  the  welkin  f  dome, 

And  all  thy  hues  were  born  in  Heaven. 
Forever  float  that  standard  sheet ! 

Where  breathes  the  foe  but  falls  before  us, 
With  Freedom's  soil  beneath  our  feet, 

And  Freedom's  banner  streaming  o'er  us. 

THE   MEANING    OF   THE   AMERICAN   FLAG. 

Many  eloquent  speeches  have  been  made 
that  recite  what  the  flag  should  stand  for  to 
a  citizen  of  America.  Among  them  two  are 
here  selected : 

*  The  waves  rush  back  affrighted  before  the  smoke  of  the 
cannon  of  the  broadside  guns. 

f  The  welkin  =  the  hollow  vault  of  the  sky. 


THE   MEANING  OF  THE  AMERICAN  FLAG.       57 

"As  at  the  early  dawn  the  stars  shine 
forth  even  while  it  grows  light,  and  then, 
as  the  sun  advances,  that  light  breaks  into 
banks  and  streaming  lines  of  color,  the  glow- 
ing red  and  intense  white  striving  together 
and  ribbing  the  horizon  with  bars  effulgent ; 
so,  on  the  American  nag,  stars  and  beams  of 
many  colored  light  shine  out  together.  .  .  . 

"It  is  the  banner  of  dawn.  It  means 
Liberty  /  and  the  galley  slave,  the  poor  op- 
pressed conscript,  the  down-trodden  creature 
of  foreign  despotism,  sees  in  the  American 
flag  that  very  promise  and  production  of 
God:  'The  people  which  sat  in  darkness, 
saw  a  great  light ;  and  to  them  which  sat  in 
the  region  and  shadow  of  death,  light  is 
sprung  up.' 

"In  1777,  within  a  few  days  of  one  year 
after  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  the 
congress  of  the  colonies  in  the  confederated 
states  assembled  and  ordained  this  glorious 
national  flag  which  we  now  hold  and  defend, 
and  advanced  it  full  high  before  God  and  all 
men  as  the  flag  of  liberty.  It  was  no  holi- 
day flag  gorgeously  emblazoned  for  gayety  or 
vanity.  It  was  a  solemn  national  symbol.  .  .  • 

"  Our  flag  carries  American  ideas,  Ameri- 


58  THE  AMERICAN  FLAG. 

can  history,  and  American  feelings.  Begin- 
ning with  the  colonies,  and  coming  down  to 
our  time,  in  its  sacred  heraldry,  in  its  glori- 
ous insignia,  it  has  gathered  and  stored 
chiefly  this  supreme  idea:  Divine  right  of 
liberty  in  man.  Every  color  means  liberty ; 
every  thread  means  liberty;  every  form  of 
star  and  beam  or  stripe  of  light  means  lib- 
erty ;  not  lawlessness,  not  license ;  but  or- 
ganized, institutional  liberty — liberty  through 
law,  and  laws  for  liberty  ! 

"  It  is  not  a  painted  rag.  It  is  a  whole 
national  history.  It  is  the  Constitution.  It 
is  the  Government.  It  is  the  free  people  that 
stand  in  the  government  on  the  Constitution." 
—From  the  address  of  the  Rev.  Henry  Ward 
Beecher  to  members  of  the  Fourteenth  Regi- 
ment of  New  York  State  Troops  in  1861. 

"  There  is  the  national  flag !  He  must  be 
cold  indeed  who  can  look  upon  its  folds  rip- 
pling in  the  breeze  without  pride  of  country. 
If  he  be  in  a  foreign  land,  the  flag  is  com- 
panionship, and  the  country  itself,  with  all  its 
endearments.  Who,  as  he  sees  it  can  think 
of  a  State  merely  ?  Whose  eye,  once  fas- 
tened upon  its  radiant  trophies  can  fail  to 


THE  MEANING  OF  THE  AMERICAN  FLAG.       59 

recognize  the  image  of  the  whole  nation  ? .  .  . 
Its  highest  beauty  is  in  what  it  symbolizes. 
It  is  because  it  represents  all  that  all  gaze 
upon  it  with  delight  and  reverence.  .  .  . 

"Its  stripes  of  alternate  red  and  white 
proclaim  the  original  union  of  thirteen  States 
to  maintain  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 
Its  stars,  white  on  a  field  of  blue,  proclaim 
that  union  of  States  constituting  our  national 
constellation  which  receives  a  new  star  with 
every  new  State.  The  two  together  signify 
union,  past  and  present.  The  very  colors 
have  a  language.  .  .  .  White  is  for  purity ; 
red  for  valor;  blue  for  justice;  and  all  to- 
gether— bunting,  stripes,  stars  and  colors, 
blazing  in  the  sky — make  the  flag  of  our 
country,  to  be  cherished  by  all  our  hearts,  to 
be  upheld  by  all  our  hands." — Charles  Sum- 
ner,  Senator  from  Massachusetts. 

The  speeches  of  Sumner  and  of  Beecher 
show  the  meanings  that  eloquent  and  patriotic 
civilians  find  in  the  flag.  Soldiers  show  their 
devotion  to  it  in  more  direct  and  immediate 
ways.  Out  of  a  thousand  incidents  that 
might  be  quoted  from  the  history  of  the  wars 
of  the  United  States,  one  is  here  set  down. 
It  exhibits  the  passionate  devotion  of  loyal 


60  THE  AMERICAN   FLAG. 

soldiers  to  the  standard  under  which  they 
serve,  which  is  to  them  the  symbol  of  the 
cause  and  the  country  that  they  give  their 
lives  to  defend. 

In  the  year  1863  the  Sixteenth  Regiment 
of  Connecticut  volunteers,  after  three  days' 
1  ard  fighting,  was  forced  to  surrender  with 
the  rest  of  the  command.  Just  before  the 
enemy  swarmed  over  the  breastworks  that 
they  had  defended  for  so  long,  the  colonel 
of  the  regiment  shouted  to  his  men  to 
save  the  colors — not  to  let  the  flag  fall  into 
the  hands  of  the  enemy.  In  an  instant  the 
battle  flags  were  stripped  from  their  poles 
and  cut  and  torn  into  small  fragments. 
Every  piece  was  carefully  hidden  in  the 
best  way  possible. 

The  regiment,  some  five  hundred  strong^ 
was  sent  to  a  prison  camp  where  most  of  the 
men  remained  until  the  close  of  the  war. 
Each  piece  of  the  colors  was  sacredly  pre- 
served. When  a  soldier  died  his  piece  was 
intrusted  to  a  comrade.  At  the  end  of  the 
war  the  weary  prisoners  returned  to  their 
homes,  each  bringing  his  bit  of  star  or  stripe 
with  him.  All  these  worn  fragments  were 
patched  together  and  the  regimental  colors, 


THE  MEANING  OF  THE  AMERICAN  FLAG.       61 

nearly  complete,  are  now  preserved  in  the 
State  House  at  Hartford. 

No  devotion  could  be  more  simple,  more 
resolute,  more  absolute,  than  this.  And  their 
love  of  the  flag  was  not  shown  alone  by  their 
willingness  to  die  for  it  on  the  field  of  action. 
They  lived  for  it  through  long  years  of  im- 
prisonment, and  brought  it  back  whole  to  the 
State  that  gave  it  into  their  hands  to  honor 
and  defend. 

The  adventurous  sailors  of  the  United 
States  have  displayed  the  flag  in  every  part 
of  the  world  where  commerce  called  them, 
from  the  Arctic  to  the  Indies.  Our  navy 
has  made  it  respected  in  peace  and  in 
war.  It  has  been  planted  by  armed  force 
in  Tripoli,  1805;  Mexico,  1846, 1914;  Manila 
and  Porto  Rico,  1898;  Cuba,  1898,  1908; 
China,  1900;  Haiti,  1915,  etc. 

The  exploring  expedition  of  Commodore 
Wilkes  carried  it  through  the  Pacific  Ocean 
and  to  the  Antarctic  regions  (1839).  The 
Arctic  expeditions  of  Kane  (1850-'53),  Hayes 
(1860),  Hall  (1871),  De  Long  (1879),  Greely 
(1881-'83),  Peary  (1891-1909)  unfurled  the 
flag  among  the  icebergs  of  the  extremest 
North.  Stanley  has  carried  it  to  the  heart  of 


62  THE  AMERICAN  FLAG. 

Africa  (1871  and  later).  It  is  respected 
everywhere,  and  everywhere  it  stands  for 
American  freedom,  energy,  vigor. 

THE   MAN    WITHOUT   A    COUNTRY. 

Every  American  child  ought  to  read  a 
little  book  written  in  1863,  during  the  war 
of  the  Rebellion,  by  the  Rev.  Edward  Ever- 
ett Hale,  called  The  Man  without  a  Country. 
This  masterpiece  recites  the  story  of  a  young 
officer  of  the  army,  Philip  Nolan  by  name, 
who  had  joined  in  Aaron  Burr's  plot  to  over- 
throw the  Government  of  the  United  States 
in  1805.  When  Nolan  was  tried  by  a  mili- 
tary court  he  exclaimed,  in  a  moment  of  pas- 
sion, that  he  wished  he  might  never  hear  the 
name  of  the  United  States  again. 

The  sentence  of  the  court  on  Nolan,  who 
was  misguided  and  not  willfully  a  traitor, 
was  that  his  wish  should  be  carried  out, 
and  that  he  should,  in  fact,  never  hear 
the  name  of  his  country  spoken,  nor  know 
anything  of  her  history  so  long  as  he  should 
live. 

According  to  the  story,  Nolan  spent  a 
long  life,  always  at  sea  on  some  one  of  the 
naval  vessels  of  the  country,  always  in  com- 


THE  MAN  WITHOUT  A  COUNTRY.  63 

pany  with  the  officers  of  the  fleet,  always 
well  treated  and  even  loved  by  his  compan- 
ions ;  but  never  hearing  the  name  of  his 
country  spoken,  never  allowed  to  see  a  book 
or  a  newspaper  that  told  of  her  prosperity, 
never  permitted  to  converse  with  any  stranger 
who  might  tell  him  of  her  progress  and  of 
her  glory.  He  lived  a  long  life,  always  a 
man  without  a  country,  knowing  nothing  of 
home  or  friends. 

At  last,  when  he  came  to  die,  the  flag  was 
brought  to  him,  and  one  of  his  faithful  com- 
panions told  him  the  story  of  each  star  in  the 
Union,  star  by  star.  The  whole  of  her  glori- 
ous history  was  unfolded  amid  the  old  man's 
tears.  During  all  the  long  years  of  his  life 
he  had  thought  of  this  history,  guessed  it  out 
bit  by  bit,  and  had  loved  his  country  as  none 
but  an  exile  can.  His  heart  had  been  changed 
long  before,  but  he  had  submitted  to  his  just 
punishment  with  manly  resignation.  His 
whole  life  had  been  an  expiation  for  the 
folly  and  mistake  of  his  rash  youth. 

This  pitiful  tale  is  not  true.  It  is  a  mere 
piece  of  imagination.  But  it  pictures  the 
misery  and  suffering  of  a  man  who  has  will- 
fully separated  himself  from  his  comrades 


64:  THE  AMERICAN  FLAG. 

and  who  has  cut  himself  off  from  all  the 
benefits  and  joys  of  association  with  his  fel- 
low men.  It  teaches,  as  no  other  writing  can, 
the  meaning  of  patriotism,  and  the  significa- 
tion of  a  flag. 


PART  II. 
THE  FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 


CHAPTEK  III. 

ANCIENT   STANDARDS    AND  BANNERS EMBLEMS 

SYMBOLS THE   CROSS ANCIENT    FLAGS. 

THE  very  earliest  standards  were  the 
symbols  of  the  power  of  a  king  or  of  his 
military  commanders.  The  god  Hercules 
was  the  standard  of  Alexander  the  Great. 
A  city,  like  Athens,  had  an  emblem  of  its 
own.  The  owl  of  Athens  stood  for  the 
power  of  the  city.  Such  emblems  were  often 
of  religious  origin,  and  had  a  sacred  signifi- 
cance. The  Egyptians,  for  instance,  bore 
sacred  emblems  on  their  military  standards, 
and  these  emblems  were  devised  by  the 
priests.  Sometimes  they  carried  a  tablet  in- 
scribed with  the  king's  name. 

The  ancient  Hebrews  had  standards  for 
the  various  tribes.  The  Old  Testament  re- 

6  65 


66 


THE  FLAGS  OP  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 


cites  (Numbers  i,  52)  that  every  man  pitched 
his  tent  by  his  standard.  Each  of  the  twelve 
tribes  of  Israel  had  its  own  emblem :  Judah, 
a  lion ;  Reuben,  a  man ;  Dan,  an  eagle ; 
Ephraim,  an  ox  ;  etc. 

The    Chaldeans   used  for   an  emblem   a 
dove  standing  on  a  naked  sword.    Xenophon 

says  that  the  Persians 
of  his  time  (400  B.  c.) 
bore  an  eagle,  with 
wings  displayed,  on 
the  end  of  a  long 
lance.  The  disk  of 
the  sun  was  an  an- 
cient Persian  emblem 
also.  When  the  rays 

found  in  the  arms  of  the  of    the    morning    SUU 
ancient    Roman    Empire,  gfo-uck       the       brazen 
France,  Prussia,  etc. ;  dou- 
ble-headed eagles  in  the  standard   in  front    of 

arms  of  Russia  and  A. is-      ^he    rreiieraFs     tent    it 
tria.     (See  Plates  VI  and  , ,  .         -, 

VII)  \\as    the     signal     to 

march.    The  emblems 

of  modern  Persia  are  the  lion  and  the  sun. 
The  Parthians  employed  the  figure  of  a 
dragon  as  an  emblem.  The  serpent  was  a 
common  emblem  amoiiLr  heathen  tribes. 

In  the  early  days  of  the   Roman  republic 


FIG.  15. — An  eagle  displayed. 
Single-headed  eagles    are 


ANCIENT  STANDARDS  AND  BANNERS.        67 


the  troops  went  into  battle  bearing  a  wisp  of 
hay  bound  to  a  pole.  The  standards  of  the 
different  divisions  of  the 
army  were  various  until 
after  the  time  of  Marius 
(died  B.  c.  86)  when  the 
legions  received  their 
eagles.  The  cohorts  and 
centuries  of  troops  had 
flags  with  the  general's 
name  embroidered  upon 
them,  and  these  flags 
were  given  to  the  brav-  FIG.  16.— Eagle  of  the  Ro- 
est  and  to  the  oldest  sol- 
diers to  carry,  and  they 
were  sacredly  guarded. 
Whoever  lost  his  flag  in 
battle  was  put  to  death. 
The  flag  was  the 
symbol  of  the  majesty 
of  Rome  and  of  the  valor  and  loyalty  of 
all  the  troops.  The  Roman  soldiers  swore 
their  oaths  of  allegiance  on  the  flags.  The 
reverence  and  devotion  with  which  the 
modern  soldier  regards  his  flag  is  a  direct 
consequence  of  the  feeling  of  the  Roman 
legionary  for  his  standard. 


man  Legions.  S.  P.  Q. 
R.  stands  for  Senatus 
Populusque  Quirites 
Rom  anus  —  i.  e.,  the 
senate  and  the  people  « 
of  Rome,  and  the  Qui- 
rites, who  were  those 
Sabines  that  became 
Roman  citizens. 


68 


THE  FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 


The  idea  of  the  Roman  soldier  has  de- 
scended to  us  and  become  our  inheritance, 
just  as  the  ideas  of  duty  and  of  law  of  the 
Roman  citizen  have  been  transmitted  through 
centuries  and  adopted  in  our  private  and 
public  conduct. 

You  can  read  in  your  Caesar's  Commenta- 
ries (Book  IV,  chapter  xxix),  how  one  morn- 


Fio.  17.— Eagle  of  the 
Roman  Legions. 


Fio.  18. — A  Roman  banner 
or  standard. 


ing,  early,  Caesar  found  himself  under  the 
cliffs  of  Albion.  The  Britons  of  Kent 
were  gathered  on  the  beach  to  oppose  his 
landing  by  force.  Two  hours  after  noon 
the  preparations  of  the  Romans  were  all 
made  and  the  landing  was  attempted. 
The  ships  were  so  large  that  they  could 
not  come  close  to  the  shore,  and  the  heavily 


ANCIENT  STANDARDS  AND  BANNERS.        69 


armed  legionaries  had  to  leap  into  the 
sea  and  there  to  fight  the  waves  and  the 
enemy. 

"  Our  men,"  says  Caesar,  "  with  all  these 
things  against  them  were  not  so  alert  at 
fighting  as  was  usual  with 
them  on  dry  ground." 
Then  the  eagle  bearer  of 
the  tenth  legion — Caesar's 
favorite  legion  —  jumped 
into  the  sea,  proclaiming 
that  he,  at  least,  would  do 
his  duty.  Unless  they 
wished  to  see  their  eagle 
fall  into  the  hands  of  the 

, ,  „  T,  FIG.  19.— The  standard 

enemy  they  must  follow  of  the  Gauls  or  of 
him. 

"  Jump  down,"  he  said, 
"my  fellow  soldiers,  un- 
less you  wish  to  betray 
your  eagle  to  the  enemy. 
I,  at  any  rate,  will  do  my  duty  to  the  repub- 
lic and  to  our  general."  When  he  had  said 
this  with  a  loud  voice,  he  threw  himself  out 
of  the  ship  and  advanced  the  eagle  against 
the  enemy.  Seeing  and  hearing  this,  the 
men  leaped  forth  from  that  ship  and  from 


the  Goths,  who  were 
legionaries  of  Rome 
— the  cock  was  their 
.emblem,  and  was 
used  by  France  in 
modern  times  (1830). 


THE  FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 


others.     There  was  some  sharp  fighting,  but 
at  length  the  Britons  fled. 

In  the  first  centuries  of  the  Christian  era 
the  standard  of  the  emperors  of  Rome  was  a 

purple  banner  hanging 
from  a  beam  slung 
crosswise  from  a  long 
lance.  The  banner  of 
the  early  emperors 
bore  the  eagle.  A 
color  -  guard  of  fifty 
men  carried  it  before 
the  Caesar  when  he 
took  command  of  his 
army.  It  was  his  per- 
sonal standard,  and 
represented  his  impe- 
rial power  (see  Fig.  18). 
Constantine  the 
Great,  before  his  con- 
version to  Christianity 
in  A.D.  312,  bore  a  banner  (called  a  lal'arum) 
with  his  likeness  and  those  of  his  children 
emblazoned  upon  it.  It  was  reported  tli.-it 
on  his  conversion  he  received  a  new  Idbarum 
as  a  miraculous  gift  from  Heaven.  The 
point  of  the  lance  was  replaced  by  the  morio- 


FIG.  20.— Standards  of  the 
Roman  Legions.  The 
lowest  picture  shows  the 
monogram,  XP,  of  Christ. 


ANCIENT  STANDARDS  AND  BANNERS.        71 

gram  of  Christ  XP  (Ch,  r)  in  Greek  letters  * 
(see  the  picture  of  the  labarum  of  Constan- 
tine  in  Fig.  34)  and  after  a  time  the  cross 
replaced  the  portrait  of  the  Emperor,  and 
the  symbol  of  Christianity  glittered  on  the 
helmets  of  his  soldiers  and  was  engraved  on 
their  shields. 

This  was  the 
first  Christian  ban- 
ner in  Europe.  It 
represented  a  new 
idea.  The  tempo- 
ral and  earthly 
power  of  the  Em- 
peror was  then 
openly  acknowl- 
edged to  be  de-  FlG.;t_AssyrianstandYds. 
rived  from  the 
spiritual  power  of  Christ.  In  all  Catholic 
countries  to  this  day  the  flags  of  an  army  are 
blessed  by  the  priests,  and  flags  captured  from 
the  enemy  are  usually  hung  in  cathedrals. 

Religious  banners  came  into  general  use 
in  the  early  centuries :  the  blue  hood  of  St. 
Martin,  in  the  first  part  of  the  fifth  cen- 
tury, and  the  oriflamme  of  St.  Denis  (A.  D. 

*  The  first  two  letters  of  XPI2TO2  (Christos). 


72  THE  FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 

630),  in  France ;  the  three  banners  of  St. 
Peter,  St.  John  of  Beverley,  St.  Wilfred  of 
Ripon,  in  England  (A.  D.  1264),  and  so  forth. 
We  shall  hear  more  about  these  religious 
banners  when  we  read  the  history  of  the 
flags  of  France  and  England.  They  came  to 
have  places  of  honor  because 
the  spiritual  power  of  the 
Church  was  more  and  more 
felt  to  be  behind  the  earthly 
power  of  the  king.  Christ's 
name  on  the  labarum  of  the 
Roman  Emperor  Constantine 
was  the  earliest  symbol  that 
expressed  this  belief. 

The  Greeks  in  the  most  an- 
FIG.  2$  -Egyptian  cjent  i{mes  carried  a  piece  of 

armor  at  the  point  of  a  spear  be- 
fore their  armies ;  in  later  times  they  displayed 
standards  and  banners  charged  with  the  em- 
blems of  their  cities.  The  emblem  of  Athens 
was  the  owl  or  the  olive.  The  Lacsedemonians 
used  the  Greek  letters  alpha  (A)  or  lambda  (A) 
on  their  banner.  The  Thebans  adopted  the 
sphinx  as  an  emblem,  in  memory  of  CEdipus.* 


*  (Edipus  was  the  King  of  Thebes  who  slew  the  sphinx,  ac- 
cording to  the  legend. 


EMBLEMS  AND  SYMBOLS.  73 

The  Corinthians  employed  the  winged  horse 
— Pegasus.     Carthage  bore  a  horse's  head. 


FIG.  23. — Two  Mexican  standards  (ancient). 

Such  emblems  as  these  have  been  used 
by  nations  and  tribes  from  the  most  ancient 
times  down  to  the  present  day.  Trajan's 
column  in  Rome  was  erected  in  the  early 
years  of  the  second  century  A.  D.  The  shields 
of  the  Dacian  warriors  that  are  sculptured 
upon  it  bear  their  personal  emblems — the 
sun,  the  moon,  and  so  forth. 

Our  own  Red  Indian  tribes  have  a  totem 
— an  emblem — for  each  clan,  and  each  war- 
rior has  his  own  badge,  like  a  coat  of  arms. 
From  the  very  earliest  times  the  white  horse 
was  the  emblem  of  the  Saxons.  It  was  used 
by  King  Alfred  the  Great  (A.  D.  900),  and  is 


THE  FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 


FIG.  24. — A  dragon  passant. 


FIG.  25. — A  wivern. 


still  the  cognizance*  of  the  royal  house  of 
Hanover.  The  kingdom  of  Wessex  bore  a 
golden  dragon.  The  wiv- 
ern was  the  emblem  of  the 
Vandals;  the  raven,  that 
of  the  Danes  (see  Figs.  24 
and  25).  The  oak  is  a 
symbol  of  strength,  the 
trident  of  Neptune,  and 
so  forth. 

In  the  year  1013  the 
pope  presented  to  the  Em- 
peror Henry  II  a  globe 
surmounted  by  a  cross  to 
symbolize   the    power  of 
Christianity  and  of  the  cross  over  the  world. 
The  globe  without  the  cross  had  been  em- 

*  The  cognizance  =  the  emblem  =  the  heraldic   mark   by 
which  a  family  or  a  person  is  known. 


FIG.  26.— The  "  mound." 
A  symbol  of  imperial 
or  royal  power,  and 
of  the  su  fire  me  power 
of  the  cross  over  the 
world. 


EMBLEMS  AND  SYMBOLS. 


75 


ployed  as  a  symbol  by  the  Emperor  Augus- 
tus a  thousand  years  earlier. 

There  is  no  emblem  more  familiar  and 
more  sacred  than  the  emblem  of  the  cross.  It 
is  far  older  than  Christianity,  as  we  may  see 
(see  Fig.  27) ;  but 
after  it  was  once 
adopted  by  the 
Church  as  a  sym- 
bol, it  stood  for 
Christianity  as  the 
crescent  stood  for 
the  power  of  the 
Saracens. 

The  Crusades 
were  wars  of  the 
cross  against  the 
crescent,  just  as 
the  wars  in  Eng- 
land (A.  D.  1455- 
'71)  between  the 
houses  of  York  (whose  emblem  was  a  white 
rose)  and  of  Lancaster  (whose  emblem  was  a 
red  rose)  were  the  Wars  of  the  Roses.  Since 
the  world  began  emblems  and  symbols  like 
these  have  represented  causes,  hopes,  aspira- 
tions; and  men  have  died  under  such  ban- 


FIG.  27. — A  Grecian  banner.  From 
a  mural  painting,  500  B.  c.  No- 
tice that  the  banner  bears  the 
symbol  of  the  cross. 


76     THE  FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 

ners   for  the   ideas   shadowed  forth   in  the 
symbols. 

Flags  that  represent  national  and  social 
ideals  are  emblems  almost  as  significant  as 
the  symbols  of  religion — the  deepest  feeling 
of  men's  hearts. 

It  is  well  worth  while  to  try  to  under- 
stand exactly  how  a  symbol  comes  to  repre- 
sent— to  stand  for— an  idea.  How,  for  exam- 
ple, the  cross  really  represents  Christianity 
to  our  thoughts,  not  merely  to  our  eyes ;  or 
how  a  flag,  which  is  nothing  more  than  a  bit 
of  colored  cloth  to  our  touch  and  to  our 
sight,  really  comes  to  stand  for  the  idea  of 
our  whole  country. 

Suppose  that  you  try  to  think  of  our 
country,  what  sort  of  an  idea  do  you  have  ? 
You  can  think  of  its  vast  expanse  between 
the  two  oceans,  between  the  Gulf  and  the 
Great  Lakes ;  of  the  various  States  and 
cities,  one  by  one ;  of  the  millions  of  people 
that  inhabit  it ;  of  the  desires,  the  hopes, 
the  aspirations  of  each  one  out  of  all  these 
millions;  or  you  can  even  have  an  idea  of 
the  desires  and  hopes  and  aspirations  that 
each  person  of  all  the  millions  has  in  com- 


SYMBOLS— WHAT  THEY  EXPRESS.  77 

mon  with  every  other  one  of  his  fellow 
countrymen. 

It  is  possible  to  think  each  one  of  these 
thoughts  separately,  or  even  to  think  them 
together  in  a  way.  These  ideas  and  a  hun- 
dred more  are  all  included  in  the  notion  of 
"  our  country." 

For  instance,  when  we  say  "  our  country," 
we  know,  at  the  very  instant,  that  it  is  a 
country  devoted  to  freedom,  obedient  to  law ; 
that  it  has  a  character  of  its  own  just  as  a 
person  has  a  character.  We  think  of  its  free- 
dom, or  of  its  obedience  to  law,  as  part  of 
our  country's  character,  just  as  we  feel  that 
one  of  our  friends  is  kind,  and  truthful,  and 
courageous,  and  trustworthy. 

All  such  separate  facts  go  to  make  up  the 
character  of  our  friend ;  and  the  idea  of  our 
country  contains  a  thousand  separate  facts  of 
the  same  sort.  Our  country  is  like  a  person. 
And  just  as  we  feel  that  one  of  our  friends  has 
a  certain  character  and  would  act  in  a  certain 
way  if  he  were  tried  in  certain  circumstances, 
so  we  feel  that  our  country  has  a  character; 
that  it  is  more  than  a  vast  expanse  of  land, 
more  than  millions  of  separate  people ;  that 
it  has  desires,  and  virtues,  and  faults,  and 


78    THE  FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 

hopes,  and  aspirations  of  its  very  own  that 
make  it  what  it  really  is. 

When  we  look  at  a  photograph  of  our 
friend,  or  when  we  speak  his  name,  we  are 
vividly  reminded  of  his  character.  And 
when  we  speak  the  name  of  our  country- 
America — or  when  we  see  its  flag  waving  in 
the  breeze,  we  seem  to  know  the  country  as 
a  whole.  The  word  America  and  the  flag, 
are  symbols  that  imply  its  whole  character. 
Back  of  the  word  that  can  be  heard,  or  of 
the  flag  that  can  be  touched,  there  is  an  idea 
which  either  of  these  symbols  serves  to  call 
up  in  our  minds. 

Whenever  we  see  the  flag  it  stands  for 
the  whole  country  and  for  the  whole  of  the 
country,  just  as  the  name  America  stands  for 
every  part  of  our  national  character — for  its 
bravery,  its  honor,  its  kindness,  its  energy,  its 
devotion  to  law,  its  obedience  to  order. 

The  flag  is  a  symbol  of  the  whole  country 
and  represents  its  character.  When  we  see 
this  symbol  we  know  our  country  just  as  we 
know  our  friend  when  we  hear  his  name 
spoken.  As  years  go  on  we  know  our  friend 
better  and  better.  We  become  more  and 
more  acquainted  with  his  virtues,  and  we  find 


SYMBOLS— WHAT  THEY  EXPRESS.  79 

new  excellences  in  him.  He  still  Las  the 
same  name ;  but  this  name  comes  to  mean 
more  and  more  to  us  as  we  understand  him 
better.  The  form  of  the  symbol  (his  name) 
remains  the  same,  but  it  stands  for  more  and 
for  different  things.  It  is  the  same  with  the 

o 

name  of  a  country,  or  with  its  flag. 

As  we  learn  to  understand  better  and 
better  what  the  character  of  a  country  really 
is,  the  symbols  that  represent  it  take  on  new 
meanings.  The  symbols  themselves  usually 
remain  unchanged  in  form;  but  they  stand 
for  new  things.  Some  symbols  have  a  long 
history.  The  cross  now  stands  for  Christian- 
ity and  represents  the  whole  Christian  history. 
But  the  symbol  is  far  older  than  the  Christian 
era.  It  has  come  to  represent  a  new  thing. 
It  is  very  instructive  to  trace  the  history  of 
any  symbol  of  the  sort.  It  helps  us  to  un- 
derstand the  impulses  that  move  the  minds 
of  men.  Let  us  take  a  few  examples  of  sym- 
bols with  long  histories. 

Learned  men  have  proved,  by  ways  that 
are  too  complicated  to  be  written  out  in 
this  little  book,  that  the  two  symbols  in  Figs. 
28  and  29  mean  much  the  same  thing,  and 
have  much  the  same  history. 


80    THE  FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 

If  we  should  stop  to  write  out  the  proofs 

that  the  learned  men  used,  this  chapter  would 

be  very  long  and  rather 

T  uninteresting.       But    if 

you  will  take  their  proofs 
,  ~"*     for  granted  and  only  pay 

FIG.  28.  FIG.  29.  ,  .      J 

attention  to  the  things 
that  they  have  found  out,  you  will  not  think 
what  they  say  uninteresting  at  all.  On  the 
contrary,  you  will  begin  to  see  what  wonder- 
ful things  symbols  are,  and  how  they  have  a 
kind  of  life  of  their  own.  These  two  sym- 
bols have  lived  for  at  least  thirty  centuries, 
and  they  are  young  still,  and  will  live  much 
longer  yet. 

The  symbol  of  a  kind  of  cross  with  three 
points  was  used  centuries  ago  to  represent 
the  motions  of  the  sun  in  the  heavens  in  its 
daily  course  from  rising  to  setting.  People 
looked  on  the  sun  as  the  source  of  all  the  life 
of  plants  and  beasts  and  of  men,  as  indeed 
it  is  in  a  way.  They  did  not  look  farther 
than  the  sun  for  a  God  who  created  it ;  they 
thought  of  the  Sun  himself  as  a  god,  and 
they  represented  his  course  in  the  heavens 
by  this  three-legged  cross. 

One  of  the  arms  of  the  cross  represented 


THE  SYMBOL  OF  THE  CROSS.  81 

the  morning  sun,  one  the  sun  at  noon,  and  the 
other  the  sun  in  the  afternoon.  The  three 
arms  together  pointed  out  the  whole  journey 
of  the  Sun  in  the  heavens :  the  daily  miracle 
of  his  rising,  his  culmination,  his  setting. 

This  symbol  was  known  in  Eastern  coun- 
tries for  a  very  long  time  before  the  Chris- 
tian era  begins.  The  first  time  that  it  ap- 
peared in  the  West  was  on  the  coins  of 
Lycia,*  about  four  hundred  and  eighty  years 
before  Christ.  All  the  nations  and  cities 
about  the  Mediterranean  Sea  were  trading 
with  each  other,  and  the  symbols  of  one 
country  or  tribe  were  known  to  other  tribes 
or  countries  in  the  neighborhood.  Coins, 
especially,  would  pass  from  hand  to  hand. 
Now,  Sicily  was  a  fertile  country  engaged 
in  trade.  Ceres,  the  patron  goddess  of  agri- 
culture, was  born  in  Sicily,  and  the  ancient 
name  of  Sicily  was  the  land  of  the  throe 
capes  (Trinakrici). 

Some  Sicilian  sailor,  or  merchant,  or  law- 
giver, saw  one  of  these  coins  of  Lycia,  and  it 
seemed  to  him  that  this  curious  device  of  a 
three-armed  cross  was  precisely  the  symbol 

*  Lycia  was  a  province  of  Asia  Minor  bordering  on  the 
Mediterranean  Sea. 

7 


82  THE  FLAGS  OF   F011EIUN  NATIONS. 

for  his  own  country  of  three  capes;  there 
was  an  arm  for  each  cape.  So,  as  early  as 
B.  c.  317,  the  coins  of  Sicily  bear  the  three- 
armed  cross  as  a  symbol.  It  was  a  symbol 
of  the  three  capes,  and  no  longer  a  reminder 
of  the  course  of  the  Sun-God  in  the  heavens. 
The  Crusades  brought  many  English  and 
Scottish  knights  to  Oriental  countries  and 
to  Sicily,  between  the  date  of  the  first  Cru- 
sade (A.D.  1095)  and  of  the  last  (1270). 
It  was  just  at  the  time  of  the  Crusades  that 
warriors  began  to  assume  coats 
of  arms  as  marks  of  knightly 
bravery  and  distinction,  and  it 
is  about  this  time  that  the  three- 
armed  cross  first  appeal's  in  the 

Fio.  30.— The  .-£,., 

three-armed       COatS    Of    arms    OI    English    tai Ill- 
cross  of  the     lies.     The  Crusaders  totally  lost 

arms  of  the         •    i  ,       «  .  i  T 

isle  of  .Man.  81Snt  of  tne  rea^  meaning  of  the 
symbol,  and  took  the  three  arms 
of  the  cross  to  be  three  human  legs,  as  in  the 
picture.  They  were  the  three  legs  of  a  man  ; 
and  in  the  year  1206  this  symbol  was  intro- 
duced into  the  Isle  of  Man,  near  England, 
and  to  this  day  forms  a  part  of  the  coat  of 
arms  of  that  province. 

Here  is  a  symbol  that  has  preserved  its 


THE  SYMBOL  OF   THE  CROSS.  83 

form  for  centuries,  though  its  early  meanings 
were  soon  lost.  It  was  never  a  sacred  sym- 
bol to  the  Crusaders  or  even  to  the  Sicil- 
ians ;  but  its  shape  has  been  preserved,  like 
that  of  a  fly  in  amber,  for  centuries.  So 
long  as  coats  of  arms  continue  to  be  used,  it 
will  remain  an  English  heraldic  device.* 

The  three-armed  cross  is  only  a  special 
form  of  the  four-armed  cross  shown  in  the 
last  picture.  This  was  likewise  a  symbol  of 
the  sun  in  very  early  times,  though  it  has 
now  quite  lost  this  meaning.  The  learned 
men  tell  us  that  this  symbol  was  found  in 
the  Troad — on  the  plain  of  Troy — at  least 
thirteen  centuries  before  Christ  —  that  is, 
thirty -two  hundred  years  ago. 

It  was  known  in  Greece  twelve  centuries 
before  Christ ;  in  India  and  in  Sicily,  three 
centuries  before  Christ;  in  Britain,  about 
the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era ;  in  China, 
Persia,  North  Africa,  Europe,  about  the  same 
time ;  in  Tibet,  a  few  hundred  years  later ; 
and  it  had  penetrated  to  remote  Iceland  by 
the  ninth  century. 

It  stood  for  a  symbol  of  the  sun  in  the 

*  See  the  paragraph  Korea  in  Chapter  V  for  another  ex- 
ample of  a  very  ancient  symbol  still  in  use. 


84     THE  FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 

beginning;  for  a  symbol  of  the  religion  of 
Buddha,  in  India  and  Japan ;  and  for  a  sym- 
bol of  Christianity  in  European  countries. 
Its  form  remained  unchanged,  but  its  mean- 
ing varied.  Men  used  it  to  symbolize  their 
beliefs,  as  these  slowly  changed  through 
many  centuries,  from  heathenism  to  Chris- 
tianity. Whatever  the  belief  of  any  century 
may  have  been,  there  was  a  symbol  ready  at 
hand  to  stand  for  it. 

To  the  heathen  it  was  a  symbol  of  the 
sun ;  to  the  Oriental,  a  symbol  of  Buddha ; 
to  the  European,  a  symbol  of  Christ,  who 
died  on  the  cross.  In  every  land  it  was  rev- 
erenced. The  Japanese  Buddhist  to-day  sees 
in  it  a  reminder  of  the  founder  of  his  religion, 
just  as  the  Christian  sees  in  it  a  reminder  of 
Christ's  sufferings.  It  is  a  sacred  symbol  to 
both ;  it  represents  a  world  of  ideas ;  it  em- 
bodies a  belief. 

The  flag  of  a  country  is  a  symbol  of  the 
same  sort.  A  flag  stands  for  the  personality 
of  a  country,  for  its  character,  its  virtues,  its 
hopes,  its  aspirations.  Men  die  for  a  flag  to 
uphold  the  ideals  that  are  embodied  in  their 
country,  just  as  thousands  of  martyrs  have 
died  for  the  cross. 


DIFFERENT  FORMS  OF  THE  CROSS.          85 

The  picture  that  follows  gives  a  few  of 
the  maiiy  forms  of  the  cross  since  it  became 
a  Christian  symbol.  In  the  very  first  cen- 
turies after  Christ  the  favorite  symbol  of  the 
Christians  was  a  fish,  not  the  cross.  The 
Greek  name  for  a  fish  is  IXOT2,  and  the  let- 

lt*x+ 


9  IO  II  12  13  14- 

FIG.  31.  —  Some  of  the  many  forms  of  crosses:  1,  Cross  of  Cal- 
vary; 2,  Latin  cross;  3,  Tan-cross  (like  the  Greek  letter 
tau)  ;  4,  Lorraine  cross  ;  5,  Patriarchal  cross  ;  6,  St.  An- 
drew's cross  (the  Scottish  cross)  ;  7,  St.  George's  cross  (the 
English  cross)  —  it  is  also  called  the  Greek  cross  ;  8,  Papal 
cross  (its  three  arms  symbolize  the  ecclesiastical,  the  civil, 
and  the  judicial  jurisdictions  of  the  pope)  ;  9,  cross  nowy- 
quadrant;  10,  the  cross  of  Malta;  11,  cross  fourche  (that 
is,  forked);  12,  cross  forme  or  cross  pattd;  13,  cross  po- 
tent (the  cross  in  the  ancient  arms  of  Jerusalem);  14, 
cross  flory. 

ters  of  this  word  make  the  initials  of  the 
Greek  phrase  "  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  God, 
the  Saviour."  The  fish  was  the  favorite 
Christian  symbol  until  the  tenth  century. 


86    THE  FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 

The  cross  was  always  one  of  the  symbols 
of  Christianity,  but  after  that  time  it  became 
the  chief  among  all.  After  the  sixth  century 
the  cross  began  to  be  drawn  in  the  very 
shape  of  the  cross  of  the  crucifixion  (Fig.  1 
of  the  picture),  and  it  thus  became  an  image, 
something  different  from  a  symbol. 

A  victorious  nation  often  adopts,  with  a 
changed  meaning,  the  symbols  of  the  con- 
quered. Symbols  travel  from  land  to  land, 
and  they  are  fossil  history.  The  Franks — the 
French — took  the  eagle  of  the  Romans.  The 
Romans  took  the  dragon  from  the  barbarians, 
and  in  later  times  the  Normans  took  the 
dragon  symbol  from  the  Romans  themselves. 
The  last  chapters  of  this  book  give  brief  his 
tories  of  the  flags  of  the  sovereign  states  of  the 
world  — that  is,  of  the  symbols  which  nations 
have  chosen  to  represent  their  nationality. 
The  history  of  the  flags  of  Denmark,  England, 
France,  Japan,  Wurtemberg,  among  others, 
will  serve  to  illustrate  by  historical  examples 
what  has  just  been  said  about  symbols. 

Every  knight  of  the  times  of  chivalry 
bore  a  flag  of  some  sort.  Those  of  the  lower 
ranks  carried  a  pennon  (see  JS  of  Fig.  34) 
on  the  end  of  a  lance.  A  knight  banneret 


nil-TKK'KNT   FORMS  OF  FLAGS.  87 

was  of  higher  rank  and  carried  a  square  Ian- 
n<  r  (see  C  of  Fig.  34)  which  was  sometimes 
hung  from  a  lance,  but  often  was  attached 
to  a  trumpet.  As  Shakespeare  says : 

"  /  will  a  banner  from  a  trumpet  take 
And  use  it  for  my  haste" 

Standards  were  much  larger  flags  and 
were  only  borne  by  kings,  princes,  command- 
ers in  chief,  or  by  the  higher  nobles.  They 
were  huge  flags  several  yards  long  (see  D 
of  Fig.  34).  The  bandrol  was  a  small 
banner,  and  the  penoncel  or  pensil,  a  small 
narrow  pennon.  In  Sir  Walter  Scott's  poem 
of  Marmion  he  describes  (in  canto  iv)  the 
camp  of  Scotland  before  the  battle  of  Flod- 
den,  with  its  wilderness  of  tents,  each 
marked  by  the  banner  of  some  knight — 

"A  thousand  streamers  flaunted  fair : 
Various  in  shape,  device  and  hue — 
Green,  sanguine,*  purple,  red  and  Uue, 
Broad,  narrow,  swallow-tailed  and  square, 
Scroll,  pennon,  pensil,  bandrol,\  there 
O'er  the  pavilions  J  flew. 


*  The  color  of  blood. 
f  Ancient  forms  of  flags. 
^  Pavilions  =  large  tents. 


88  THE  FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 

Highest  and  midmost  ivas  descried 
The  royal  banner,  floating  wide  ; 
The  staff,  a  pine  tree  strong  and  straight, 
Pitched  deeply  in  a  massive  stone, 
Which  still  in  memory  is  shown.* 
Yet  beneath  the  standard's  weight, 
Whenever  the  western  wind  unrolled, 
With  toil,  the  huge  and  cumbrous  fold, 
And  gave  to  view  the  dazzling  field, 
Where,  in  proud  Scotland's  royal  shield, 
The  ruddy  lion  ramped  in  gold" \ 

The  flag,  the  ensign,  was  in  Shakespeare's 
time  called  "  the  ancient,"  and  the  same  term 
designated  the  officer,  the  ensign,  who  bore 
the  banner. 

" more  ragged  than  an  old-faced  ancient  (en- 
sign)." 

— First  part  of  King  Henry  IV,  iv,  2. 

Speaking  of  lago,  it  is  said : 

"  This  is  Othello's  ancient  (ensign)  as  I  take  it." 

—Othello,  v,  1. 

Our  knowledge  of  the  forms  of  antique 
flags  and  banners  is  derived  chiefly  from  old 
paintings  and  illuminated  manuscripts,  and 

*  Which  is  still  to  this  day  shown  as  a  memorial, 
f  A  red  lion,  rampant,  on  a  gold  field  is  the  arms  of  Scot- 
land (see  the  upper  right-hand  colored  flag  in  Plate  III). 


ANCIENT  STANDARDS  AND  BANNERS. 


89 


from  a  very  remarkable  piece  of  needlework, 
"the  Bayeux  tapestry,"  that  has  been  pre- 
served to  this  day.  It  is  said  to  have  been 
worked  by  Matilda,  Queen  of  William  the 
Conqueror,  and  by  the  ladies  of  her  court. 


FIG.  32. — Two  figures  from  the  Bayeux  tapestry.    Notice  the 
form  of  the  flag  and  the  symbol  that  it  bears. 

However  this  may  be,  it  is  certain  that 
the  tapestry  is  very  old,  and  that  it  represents 
the  history  of  England  from  the  time  of 
King  Harold's  visit  to  the  Norman  court  till 
his  death  at  the  battle  of  Hastings  in  1066. 
The  tapestry  is  nineteen  inches  wide  and 
more  than  two  hundred  feet  long,  and  con- 
tains something  over  ten  thousand  separate 
figures  of  ships,  castles,  warriors,  flags,  horses, 


90 


THE  FLAGS  OP  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 


dogs,  etc.  The  flags  are  mostly  of  the  pen- 
non form,  and  they  usually  have  three  points 
to  the  tail.  They  are  covered  with  the  em- 
blems of  the  warriors,  and  it  is  from  just 
such  emblems  that  the  heraldry  of  the  Cru- 
sades took  its  symbols.  The  war  ships  of  the 
Middle  Ages  bore  emblems  on  their  sails  as 
in  the  accompanying  illustration. 


FIG.  33. — Ancient  war  ships  with  banners  on  their  sails. 


BRITISH. 
HEO  CNJUSH,   *t*CHAHT 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE   FLAGS   OF   FOREIGN  NATIONS ENGLAND — 

SIGNALING    BY    FLAGS SALUTES FEANCE. 

THE  history  of  the  flags  of  England  and 
of  France  will  be  given  with  some  fullness. 
England  has  an  historic  relation  with  Amer- 
ica, and  her  stoiy  is  in  some  sense  o'ir  own. 
The  variations  that  have  occurred  in  the 
banners  of  France  during  the  past  fourteen 
hundred  years  illustrate  in  the  most  complete 
way  the  manner  in  which  the  symbols  of  a 
nation  may  alter  as  their  national  ideals  and 
institutions  change.  Even  for  these  two  en- 

o 

signs  only  an  outline  history  can  be  given; 
there  is  no  room  for  more. 

Other  national  flags  are  referred  to  in 
Chapter  V  in  short  paragraphs  that  give  the 
most  interesting  facts  regarding  them.  The 
colored  plates  throughout  the  book  illustrate 
what  is  said  in  the  text,  and  they  should  be 
constantly  consulted. 

91 


92          THE  FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 

The  reader  must  not  forget  that  each  and 
every  one  of  these  flags  has  a  long  and  event- 
ful history.  A  flag  is,  and  always  has  been, 
a  symbol  of  beliefs  and  aspirations.  As 
these  have  changed  the  symbols  have  usually 
changed  with  them.  Sometimes  a  changed 
belief  is  fitted  to  an  ancient  symbol,  as  we 
saw  in  Chapter  III.  If  we  have  leisure  to 
study  any  set  of  symbols  whatever,  we  shall 
always  find  warm  human  life  back  of  them. 
The  history  of  any  man  or  of  any  nation,  with 
its  beliefs,  its  actions,  its  passions,  its  joys,  its 
sorrows,  its  successes  and  misfortunes,  is 
always  full  of  interest.  The  symbols  of  such 
a  history  are  only  uninteresting  when  we  are 
ignorant  of  their  meaning. 

Nothing  can  be  less  interesting  than  the 
flag  of  Bulgaria,  for  instance,  to  one  who  is 
ignorant  of  her  long  history.  But  if  you 
know  the  relations  of  the  Bulgarian  nation 
to  the  Roman  Empire,  the  wars  of  the  king- 
dom of  Bulgaria  with  the  Empire  of  the 
East,  the  conversion  of  the  Bulgarians  to 
Greek  Christianity,  their  centuries  of  suf- 
fering under  Turkish  rule,  their  release  from 
that  rule  by  Russian  intervention,  and  their 
recent  struggles  to  form  an  independent 


THE  FLAGS  OP  ENGLAND.  93 

state,  you  will  see  an  historic  continuity  in  it 
all,  and  the  new  flag  of  Bulgaria  will  come 
to  have  a  deep  meaning.  (See  Plate  VIII 
and  Chapter  V.) 

THE   FLAGS    OF   ENGLAND. 

William  the  Conqueror,  Duke  of  Nor- 
mandy, invaded  England  in  the  year  1066, 
and  defeated  the  Saxons  at  the  battle  of 
Hastings.  The  standard  of  the  Saxons  at 
that  memorable  battle  was  a  dragon  stand- 
ard. It  was  not  a  painted  banner,  nor  a 
sculptured  image,  but  a  floating  figure  in  the 
shape  of  a  dragon  made  of  cloth.  The  wind 
filled  the  double  walls  of  the  figure,  which 
was  made  like  a  bag,  and  the  standard  ap- 
peared solid  and  lifelike.  Such  dragon 
standards  had  been  used  on  the  Continent  of 
Europe  long  before  this  time,  and  they  are 
employed  in  China  and  other  eastern  coun- 
tries to  this  day. 

The  banner  of  William  the  Conqueror 
was  sent  to  him  by  the  pope.  It  was  a 
white  banner  bordered  with  blue,  and  it  bore 
a  golden  cross.  It  is  figured  on  the  Bayeux 
tapestry  (see  Fig.  32). 

Richard  the  Lion-hearted,  King  of  Eng- 


94:  THE  FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 

land,  displayed  a  dragon  standard  in  1191, 
and  it  was  in  use  in  England  as  late  as  1264, 
and  by  English  armies  on  the  Continent  dur- 
ing the  fourteenth  century.  King  Henry  III, 
in  1244,  gave  an  order  for  the  making  of  a 
standard.  It  was  to  portray  "a  dragon,  of 
red  silk  sparkling  all  over  with  fine  gold,  the 
tongue  to  resemble  burning  fire,  and  the  eyes 
to  be  of  sapphires." 

The  standards  of  early  times  were  huge 
affairs,  and  they  were  often  set  up  in  the 
midst  of  a  chariot  drawn  by  oxen  or  horses. 
The  Italians  of  Milan,  in  1035  A.  D.,  carried 
the  banner  of  their  city  in  this  fashion  ol 
red  car  supporting  a  red  mast  with  a  gill 
ball  at  the  top.  The  banner  floated  from  a 
pole  hung  crosswise  from  the  mast.  In  1138 
King  Stephen  of  England  had  such  a  chariot. 
It  supported  a  mast  carrying  a  silver  pyx,* 
and  the  pyx  contained  a  consecrated  wafer 
of  the  Blessed  Sacrament.  In  1 264  a  chariot 
of  the  sort  displayed  from  its  mast  the  three 
sacred  banners  of  St.  Peter,  St.  John  of  Bev- 
erley,  St.  Wilfred  of  Ripon — three  patron 
saints  of  England. 

*  The  pyx  is  the  box  or  vase  used  to  contain  the  consecrated 
wafer  of  the  Holy  Sacrament. 


THE  FLAGS  OF  ENGLAND.  95 

The  banners  and  standards  of  the  West- 
ern world  were  profoundly  changed  by  the 
wars  of  the  Crusades.  Heraldry — the  set  of 
rules  governing  the  use  of  emblems,  badges, 
coats  of  arms,  flags,  and  all  honorary  distinc- 
tions— grew  into  form  during  the  Crusades. 
It  was  found  to  be  a  useful  and  even  a  neces- 
sary thing  to  have  a  kind  of  a  science  or  doc- 
trine of  the  sort  in  the  huge  crusading  armies 
where  men  of  many  nations  were  gathered 
together. 

Emblems  of  one  sort  or  another  had  been 
used  from  the  earliest  times,  as  we  have 
said.  A  badge  was  employed  to  distinguish 
t^f  little  band  of  soldiers  who  obeyed  a 
single  chief.  The  chief  himself  had  his 
own  personal  banner  or  flag.  The  Crusaders 
of  different  nations  were  distinguished  by 
crosses  of  different  colors  sewed  on  the  sur- 
coats  that  covered  their  armor.  The  English 
bore  a  white  cross,  and  the  French  a  red 
cross,  for  instance. 

The  white  cross  continued  to  be  the  cross 
of  Englishmen  during  the  Crusades,  but  it 
was  changed  soon  afterward.  During  all 
their  wars  in  France  under  the  Black  Prince, 
and  during  the  fifteenth  century,  the  English 


96    THE  FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 

cross  was  red  and  the  French  cross  white. 
In  a  miniature  showing  King  John  of 
France  as  a  prisoner  of  King  Edward  III  of 
England  (about  1350),  the  French  king 
holds  in  his  hand  a  little  red  flag  with  a 
white  cross,  and  the  King  of  England  holds 
a  white  flag  with  a  red  cross — the  cross  of 
St.  George. 

During  the  third  Crusade  (1189)  coats 
of  arms  were  usually  borne  by  all  the  great 
nobles.  They  had  proved  to  be  useful  in 
time  of  battle.  The  knight  could  be  distin- 
guished in  the  press  of  men  by  the  high 
crest  on  his  helmet,  by  the  coat  of  arms  em- 
blazoned on  his  shield  or  on  the  trappings 
of  his  war  horse.  His  followers  and  retain- 
ers wore  his  badge  or  emblem.  His  banner 
was  embroidered  or  painted  with  his  armorial 
bearings. 

When  King  Richard,  the  Lion-hearted, 
returned  from  Palestine  (1194),  the  three 
lions  (often  called  leopards)  of  his  coat  <>f 
arms  became  the  royal  aims  of  England. 
They  are  shown  on  the  first  and  third  <{ii,-ir- 
ters  of  the  royal  banner  of  Great  Britain  in 
Plate  III. 

The  royal  arms  of  Great  Britain  and  Ire- 


THE  FLAGS  OF  GREAT  BRITAIN,   ETC.       97 

land  fill  the'  four  quarters  of  that  banner. 
The  arms  of  the  separate  countries  are  shown 
on  the  royal  standard  thus : 

I.  England.         II.  Scotland. 
III.  Ireland.         IV.  England. 
Wales  was  joined  to  England  in  1283,  and 
does   not   appear   in   the  arms.      Scotland's 
arms   entered   in    1603,  at  the  time  of  the 
union,  and  Ireland's  entered  at  the  same  time, 
though  the  act  of  union  for  Ireland  was  not 
passed  by  the  Parliament  until  1801. 

The  royal  banner  of  Scotland,  a  red  lion 
rampant  on  a  golden  field,  within  a  double 
tressure  flory-counter-flory,  is  separately  shown 
in  Plate  III.  The  royal  arms  of  Scotland  are 
very  ancient.  The  lion  is  borne  within  a 
double  tressure  ornamented  with  fleurs-de-lis. 
It  is  said  that  these  were  added  to  record 
the  alliances  between  the  French  and  Scot- 
tish kings.  The  cognizance  of  Ireland  is 
comparatively  modern.  It  is  a  golden  harp 
with  silver  strings  on  an  azure  field  (see 
Plate  III).  Its  flag  has  a  green  field. 

King  Edward  III  of  England  claimed 
the  kingship  of  France,  by  virtue  of  his 
descent  from  his  mother,  a  French  princess, 
and  added  fleurs-de-lis  to  the  royal  arms  to 


98     THE  FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 

mark  his  claim.  The  fleurs-de-lis  were  the 
royal  arms  of  France.  They  were  borne  by 
all  English  kings  from  1340  until  1801,  al- 
though the  English  lost  all  their  French  pos- 
sessions (except  the  town  of  Calais)  as  early 
as  1431. 

The  royal  banner  of  England  is  a  per- 
sonal standard,  not  the  flag  of  the  country. 
The  flag  of  Englishmen  is  the  banner  of  St. 
George,  a  red  cross  on  a  white  field  (Fig.  3 
and  Fig.  35).  There  are  legends  relating 
how  this  saint  rendered  great  aid  and  service 
to  King  Richard,  the  Lion-hearted,  who 
placed  himself  and  the  English  army  under 
the  saint's  protection ;  and  during  the  twelfth 
century  St.  George  became  the  patron  saint 
of  England.  From  the  year  1222  onward, 
his  feast  day  was  regularly  kept  as  a  holiday. 
The  dragon  of  St.  George  is  a  pagan  myth, 
adopted  and  made  over  anew. 

St.  George  of  England  has  a  church  dedi- 
cated to  him  in  Rome  (San  Georgio  de  Vela- 
bro),  and  his  banner  of  red  silk  is  still  dis- 
played there  once  in  every  year.  St.  George 
is  also  the  patron  saint  of  Russia,  and  his 
symbol  (the  saint  overcoming  a  dragon)  is 
borne  on  the  royal  coat  of  arms.  Plate  VII 


FIG.  34. — Various  forms  of  early  standards  and 
banners.  A  =  the  Idbarum  of  the  Emperor  Con- 
stantine  (A.  D.  312).  The  monogram  of  Christ  is  at 
the  head  of  the  staff,  above  the  banner,  and  below 
it  is  a  serpent.  B  =  the  pennon  of  a  knight  of  the 
Middle  Ages ;  it  is  a  blue  pennon  with  a  silver  chevron.  C  = 
a  banner  of  the  Middle  Ages — a  lion  rampant  on  a  blue  field. 
Z>  =  the  royal  standard  of  King  Henry  V  of  England,  who 
reigned  from  1413  to  1422.  The  standard  was  eleven  yards 
long ;  the  cross  of  St.  George  is  displayed  for  England,  and  the 
ancient  dragon  also ;  the  roses  are  emblems  of  the  House  of 
Lancaster ;  the  upper  half  of  the  standard  is  white,  the  lower 
blue,  and  the  border  is  white  and  blue. 


100        THE  FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 

shows  the  effigy  of  St.  George  and  the  dragon 
on  the  red  shield  in  the  center  of  the  Rus- 
sian imperial  standard. 

The  legend  of  St.  Andrew's  cross  declares 
that  a  white  cross  appeared  on  the  blue 
sky  during  a  famous  battle  of  the  year  940, 
when  the  Scots  and  Picts  defeated  the  Eng- 
lish and  left  their  King  Athelstane  dead  on 
the  field.  A  better  opinion  is  that  it  was 
adopted  as  the  Scottish  symbol  in  the  time 
of  the  early  Crusades  (thirteenth  century), 
It  is  exceedingly  doubtful  whether  St.  An- 
drew was  crucified  on  a  cross  of  this  shape, 
as  the  legends  declare  ;  and  St.  Patrick  was 
not  crucified  at  all,  though  a  sal  tire  has  been 
attributed  as  his  symbol  also. 

Ireland  was  united  with  Great  Britain 
(that  is,  with  England,  Wales,  and  Scotland) 
in  1801,  and  the  cross  of  St.  Patrick  was 
added  to  the  old  Union  Jack  to  form  the 
present  one.  The  Union  Jack  is  composed 
of  the  symbols  of  three  saints ;  and  it  is  to 
this  day  the  royal  colors.  It  is  displayed  on 
all  ships  of  war,  by  eveiy  regiment,  and  at 
every  fortress.  The  main  changes  in  English 
flags  are  shown  in  the  pictures  that  have 
been  given.  There  have  been  other  changes 


THE  FLAGS  OF  GREAT  ERITAIK     live       ]()i 

from  time  to  time  that  are  of  interest  to 
Englishmen,  but  not  to  Americans. 

The  royal  standard  since  the  time  of 
King  Richard  I  (1194)  has  always  borne  the 
coat  of  arms  of  the  reigning  monarch.  This 
coat  has  changed  from  time  to  time  as  kings 
of  different  houses  have  sat  upon  the  throne 
(the  Plantagenets,  1154  to  1399;  the  house 
of  Lancaster,  1399  to  1461  ;  the  house  of 
York,  1461  to  1485;  the  house  of  Tudor, 
1485  to  1603;  the  house  of  Stuart,  1603  to 
1649,  and  from  1660  to  1714;  the  Common- 
wealth, from  1649  to  1660;  the  house  of 
Hanover,  from  1714  to  the  present  day). 

The  Union  Jack  was  declared  to  be  the 
king's  colors  in  1606.  On  British  men-of- 
war  it  is  displayed  from  a  jack  staff  in  the 
bow  of  the  ship,  and  American  war  vessels 
have  adopted  the  same  custom  and  fly  their 
jack  (Plate  II)  in  the  same  way. 

It  is  believed  that  the  term  "Jack"  is 
derived  from  the  abbreviated  name  of  the 
reigning  sovereign,  King  James  I,  under 
whose  direction  the  first  Union  Flag  was 
constructed,  and  who  signed  his  name 
"  Jacques." 

The  white  ensign  with  St.  George's  cross 


102         'n?K  FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 

has  been  the  real  flag  of  the  English  people 
since  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century.  It  was 
a  part  of  the  royal  standard  in  early  times, 
as,  for  example,  in  the  drawing,  Fig.  34,  of 
the  standard  of  Henry  V  (1413-'22),  and  it 
is  now  the  distinctive  flag  of  Her  Majesty's 
ships  of  war,  etc. 

For  a  time  the  war  ships  flew  three  dif- 
ferent ensigns — namely,  the  white  ensign  (the 
cross  of  St.  George)  ;  the  red  ensign  (a  red 
flag  with  the  Union  Jack  on  a  canton)  ;  and 
the  blue  ensign  (a  blue  flag  with  the  Union 
Jack  on  a  canton)  (see  Plate  III  for  the  pres- 
ent form  of  these  flags).  Nelson's  fleet  was 
divided  into  "red,"  "white,"  and  "blue" 
squadrons ;  and  in  histories  of  that  time  one 
reads  of  "  Admirals  of  the  Blue,"  etc. — that 
is,  admirals  commanding  the  division  with 
the  blue  flag,  etc. 

All  British  ships  of  war  now  fly  the  white 
ensign.  The  blue  ensign  is  displayed  by  all 
vessels  of  the  naval  reserve— that  is,  by  all 
merchant  vessels  that  are  liable  to  be  called 
into  service  as  auxiliary  cruisers,  scouts,  or 
troop  ships  in  time  of  war.  The  Cunard 
steamers,  for  example,  fly  this  flag.  They 
are  merchant  vessels  in  time  of  peace,  and 


FIG.  35. — Flags  of  Great  Britain.  A  =  the  cross  of  St.  George 
for  England  (a  red  cross  on  a  white  field) ;  B  =  the  cross 
of  St.  Andrew  for  Scotland  (a  white  saltire  on  a  blue  field) ; 
(7=  the  cross  of  St.  Patrick  for  Ireland  (a  red  saltire  on 
a  white  field) ;  D  =  the  Union  Jack  in  1606 ;  E  =  the  Union 
Jack  at  the  present  time  (see  Figs.  3,  4,  and  5). 

103 


104        THE  FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 

can  be  called  into  the  service  of  the  navy  in 
time  of  war.  British  yachts  fly  the  blue  en- 
sign. The  red  ensign  ("the  meteor  flag  of 
England")  is  now  distinctively  the  flag  of 
their  merchant  service.  It  may  be  seen  in 
every  port  in  the  world. 

The  emblems  of  England,  Scotland,  and 
Ireland  are  respectively  the  rose,  the  thistle, 
and  the  shamrock  (a  trefoil,  a  clover  leaf). 
The  rose  was  assumed  as  a  personal  emblem 
by  Edward  I  (reigned  901-925).  The  red 
rose  of  the  house  of  Lancaster  and  the  white 
of  the  house  of  York  were  the  symbols  of 
the  two  parties  in  the  famous  Wars  of  the 
Koses  (1455-'71). 

The  thistle  of  Scotland  is  said  to  have 
been  adopted  as  a  symbol  because  a  party 
of  invading  Danes,  in  the  early  part  of  the 
eleventh  century,  cried  out  as  they  stepped 
on  a  bed  of  thistles,  and  were  thus  discovered 
and  defeated.  The  shamrock  was  used,  it  is 
said,  by  St.  Patrick,  in  the  fifth  century,  to 
illustrate  the  mystery  of  the  Trinity  to  his 
Irish  converts  to  Christianity.  He  showed 
them  its  three  leaves  united  on  one  stem  to 
explain  the  mystery  of  three  Persons  and  one 
God. 


SIGNALING  BY  FLAGS. 


105 


SIGNALING    BY    FLAGS. 

Merchant  vessels  always  carry  a  set  of 
signal  flags  (see  Plate  IV).  There  are  about 
twenty  flags  in  a  set.  Each  ship  has  a  code 
book  or  dictionary  of  signals  also.  This  is 
a  book  with  the  pages  arranged  in  two  col- 
umns, one  of  words  and  another  of  numbers 
corresponding  to  the  words.  The  specimen 
that  follows  is  not  a  part  of  the  code  in  ac- 
tual use,  but  is  intended  to  explain  in  a  sim- 
ple way  how  such  a  book  is  arranged. 


Words. 

Numbers.                      Words. 

Numbers. 

Any 
Are 
Boston 

0172 

0217 
0324 

Longitude 
My 
Of 

3300 
3318 
3625 

Bound 

0410 

On 

3697 

Fire 

1873 

Provisions 

4114 

For 
Have 

1927 
2722 

Ship 
Short 

4308 
4413 

Is 

2984 

We 

4811 

Latitude 

3000 

Where 

4916 

Letters 

3267 

You 

5004 

Ten  of  the  signal  flags  stand  for  the  ten 
digits,  0,  1,  2,  3,  4,  5,  6,  7,  8,  9 ;  and  flags 
also  stand  for  single  letters  of  the  alphabet 
(see  Plate  IV)  so  that  words  can  be  spelled 
out,  letter  by  letter. 

When  two  ships  meet  they  first  show  the 


106        THE  FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 

ensigns  of  their  countries,  the  American  and 
British  flags,  for  instance.  Then  the  Amer- 
ican ship  hoists  a  set  of  flags  that  make  a 
number,  like  1720.  In  a  printed  list  of 
American  merchant  vessels  opposite  the  num- 
ber 1720,  the  British  captain  finds  the  name 
of  the  American  ship — as,  1720  =  the  ship 
Confidence,  of  Boston.  The  British  ship 
hoists  her  number  also,  and  the  American 
captain  finds  in  a  list  of  British  vessels  the 
name  of  the  British  ship — as,  7840  =  the 
bark  Alliance,  of  Liverpool. 

Messages  can  now  be  exchanged  by  using 
the  code  book.     For  instance,  the  American 
can  ask  the  British  ship,  u  Have  you  any  let- 
ters for  Boston  ? "  by  hoisting  the  signal  flags 
that  give  the  numbers  standing  opposite  to 
these  words  in  the  code  book ;  thus,  2722-- 
5004—0172—3267—1927—0324.     "  We  are 
short  of  provisions,"   could  be  sent  by  dis- 
playing  the  numbers    4811 — 0217 — 4413— 
3625—4114;  "My  ship  is  on  fire,"  by  3318 

-4308— 2984— 3697— 1 873  ;  "  What  is  your 
longitude  and  latitude  ? "  etc.  Any  desired 
incssai:*'  can  l>e  sent  in  this  way. 

In  the  code  in  actual  use  the  flags  PH 
mean  "  We  are  starving  " ;  NM  means  "  The 


IV. 


CQMMCHC/AL  COOL 

QF 
J/G/VAL3 


COSTA   KICAWAR 


SIGNALING  BY  FLAGS.  107 

ship  is  on  fire  "  ;  BRS  stands  for  "Will  you 
take  a  letter  for  me  ? "  D WHB  means  "  Sur- 
render your  ship  at  once " ;  and  so  forth. 
There  are'  several  thousand  such  phrases  in 
the  book,  and  they  cover  nearly  all  the  ques- 
tions and  answers  in  common  use. 

If  you  will  look  in  the  shipping  news  of 
a  daily  newspaper  you  will  see  such  entries 
as  this,  "  Spoken  by  the  British  ship  Alliance, 
of  Liverpool,  on  June  17th,  in  longitude  30° 
W.,  latitude,  50°  N.,  the  American  ship  Con- 
fidence, of  Boston,  bound  for  Barbadoes. 
All  well."  Every  ship  reports  the  vessels 
she  has  "spoken"  during  her  voyage  the 
moment  she  arrives  at  a  port,  and  in  this 
way  the  movements  of  merchant  vessels  are 
known  to  their  owners.  Colored  lights  ready 
prepared  to  show  the  colors  of  the  differ- 
ent flags  are  used  at  night.  A  blue  and 
red  flag  is  represented  by  a  blue  and  red 
light,  etc. 

The  account  that  has  just  been  given  is 
intended  to  explain  the  principle  on  which 
marine  signaling  is  conducted,  rather  than 
to  give  the  details  of  how  the  signals  are 
sent  in  actual  practice.  In  practice,  a  mes- 
sage is  announced  by  hoisting  the  code  pen- 


108        THE  FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 

nant  (the  last  pennant  of  Plate  IV)  below 
the  national  ensign.  The  vessel  that  is  to  re- 
ceive the  message  hoists  the  same  pennant  as 
an  answering  pennant,  to  show  that  she  un- 
derstands. The  message  is  then  sent  by  num- 
bers or  by  letters  according  to  the  special 
code  in  use.  There  are  no  vowels  in  the 
flag  alphabet  except  #,  which  is  denoted 
by  the  code  pennant.  The  flag  signals  alone 
are  difficult  to  read  at  sea,  and  a  better 
system  is  to  use  black  balls  with  a  few 
very  simple  and  plain  flags.  All  of  these 
matters  are  treated  of  in  special  books  on 
signals. 

The  war  ships  of  each  nation  have  a  secret 
code  of  their  own,  and  every  such  ship  has 
a  signal  officer.  The  signal  book  itself  has 
lead  all  around  its  covers,  so  that  if  it  is 
thrown  into  the  sea  it  will  sink  and  its  secrets 
will  still  be  preserved.  A  war  ship  surren- 
dering to  the  enemy  would  take  this  way  of 
guarding  the  code,  and  it  might  be  necessary 
in  case  of  wreck  or  of  fire.  The  signal  250, 
"The  enemy  is  escaping,"  was  the  first  one 
hoisted  by  the  American  fleet  at  Santiago  de 
Cuba  on  July  3,  1898,  when  the  Spanish  fleet 
was  destroyed.  Beside  the  naval  code  the 


SIGNALING  BY  FLAGS.  109 

open  international  code  just  described  is  used 
by  the  vessels  of  every  nation — war  vessels 
and  merchant  ships  alike. 

It  is  quite  unnecessary  to  go  into  details 
regarding  signal  codes  by  flags,  but  there  are 
a  few  things  every  one  should  know.  Flags 
speak  a  universal  language  that  any  one  may 
read.  Suppose  you  are  in  the  lower  bay 
of  New  York  city  watching  a  great  steamer 
coming  in.  She  is  an  English  ship,  because 
she  carries  the  ensign  of  England  from  a  staff 
over  her  stern.*  She  is  bound  for  an  Amer- 
ican port,  and  the  American  ensign  at  her 
foremast  head  tells  that  fact  to  every  one. 
At  her  mainmast  head  she  flies  the  private 
flag  of  her  owners.  It  is  usually  a  burgee— 
that  is,  a  triangular  pennant  with  a  swallow- 
tail end.  The  house  flag  of  the  Cunard  line 
is  red  and  bears  a  gold  lion ;  the  American 
line  flies  a  white  flag  with  a  blue  eagle  dis- 
played, and  so  on.  Each  steamship  line  has 
its  own  house  flag,  of  course. 

If  she  wants  a  tugboat  to  tow  her  to  her 
landing  place  she  will  fly  the  national  ensign 

*  A  Cunard  steamer  will  carry  the  blue  ensign  because  she 
is  in  the  naval  reserve  of  England — usually  the  red  ensign  is 
flown  by  merchant  vessels. 


HO        THE  FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 

halfway  up  her  main  rigging.  Each  nation 
has  its  own  pilot  flag.  For  the  United  States 
it  is  "the  jack,"  for  England  the  union 


-    -  "T 


FIG.  3d,— Attention. 


Fro.  37.— Owe. 


jack ;  and  when  a  pilot  is  needed  it  is  dis- 
played at  the  foremast  head.  United  States 
men-of-war  fly  the  jack  at  a  little  staff  near 
the  bow  of  the  vessel  whenever  the  ship  is 
in  order  and  ready  for  fighting  or  inspec- 
tion. 

A  ship  at  anchor  in  the  harbor  might  be 
seen  to  display  a  yellow  flag.  This  would 
mean  that  she  had  illness  among  her  people, 


SIGNALING   BY  FLAGS. 


Ill 


that  she  was  in  quarantine.*     If  her  flag  is 
red,  she  is  taking  on  powder  or  other  danger- 


FIG.  39.— Three. 


ous  cargo.     If  she  flies  a 

blue   flag    with   a    square 

white   center   (the    "blue 

Peter"  so-called)  it  means 

she  is  about  to  sail — she  will  sail  that  very 

day — and  mails  and  luggage  must  be  hurried 

on  board. 


*  In  old  times  such  ships  were  detained  for  forty  days. 
Quarante  is  the  French  for  forty,  and  quarant-ine  the  term  de- 
rived from  it. 


112        THE  FLAGS  OP  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 

In  the  army  (and  also  in  the  navy)  mes- 
sages can  be  sent  by  spelling  out  words  from 
signals  made  by  waving  a  flag  to  the  right 
or  left,  as  follows :  A  flag  some  four  feet 
square  is  fastened  to  a  staff  some  eight  feet 
long.  The  flag  is  held  vertically  in  front  of 
the  person  sending  the  signals,  except  at  the 
moment  when  the  letters  are  formed  (Fig. 
36).  When  the  flag  is  waved  once  from  the 
vertical  position  to  the  right  and  back  again, 
the  motion  stands  for  1  (Fig.  37).  When  the 
flag  is  waved  once  from  the  vertical  position 
to  the  left  and  back  again,  the  motion  stands 
for  2  (Fig.  38).  When  the  flag  is  waved  once 
from  the  vertical  position  to  the  front  and 
back  again,  the  motion  stands  for  3  (Fig.  39). 

An  alphabet  can  now  be  arranged  as  fol- 
lows : 

A=  22  J  =  1122  S=  212 
B  =  2112  K  =  2121  T=  2 
C=  121  L=  221  U=  112 
D  =  222  M  =  1221  V  =  1222 
E=  12  N=  11  W  =  1121 
F=2221  O=  21  X  =  2122 
G  =  2211  P  =  1212  Y=  111 
H=  122  Q  =  1211  Z  = 
1=  1  R=  211 

end  of  a  word  =  3 

end  of  a  sentence  =  33 

end  of  a  message  =  333 


SIGNALING  BY  FLAGS.  113 

NUMERALS. 


2  

2222 

3  

iii2 

4  

2221 

5 

.  .       1122 

6  

2211 

7  

1222 

8  

2111 

9  

1221 

0.. 

..2112 

A  message  can  be  sent  by  spelling  out  the 
words,  as  follows : 

The      =  2—122—12—3, 

Army  =  22—211—1221—111—3, 

Moves  =  1221—21—1222—12—212—3, 

To        =  2—21—3, 

Day     =  222—22—111—333. 

Signals  like  these  can  be  read  at  a  consider- 
able distance,  especially  if  field  glasses  are 
employed.  Messages  in  the  Morse  code  of 
telegraphy  can  be  sent  by  making  1  =  a  dot, 
2  =  a  dash,  3  =  a  long  dash,  etc.  Lights 
are  employed  at  night  in  place  of  the  flags, 
using  a  red  light  for  1  and  a  white  light  for 
2.  The  beams  from  an  electric  search  light 
or  the  sounds  of  a  steam  whistle  can  be 
used  for  the  same  purpose  and  in  much  the 
same  way. 

9 


114:        THE  FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 
The  Morse  Telegraph  Code. 

ALPHABET. 


B  

G  

L  

Q  

u 
V 

C  

H  

M- 

R-    -- 

W 

D  

I    -- 

N  —  - 

B--- 

X 

E  - 

J  

0  -  - 

T  — 

Y 

z & 

NUMERALS. 

5 7 9 

6 8 0 


Any  energetic  boy  can  get  a  great  deal 
of  pleasure  and  advantage  out  of  signaling 
by  flags.  All  he  lias  to  do  is  to  set  up  a 
flagpole  on  the  top  of  his  house  where  it 
can  be  seen  by  other  boys  of  his  acquaint- 
ance. It  is  not  much  trouble  to  make  a  few 
flags  and  to  arrange  a  code  of  signals  with 
his  friends.  A  white  flag  with  a  blue  center 
might  mean  "  football  on  next  Saturday  " ; 
and  a  blue  flag  with  a  white  center,  "  I  can 
not  come  out  to-day,"  etc.  If  he  will  learn 
the  army  code  of  signaling  by  flags  he  can 
send  long  messages. 

The  most  memorable  signal  ever  dis- 
played was  flown  from  the  flagship  of  Ad- 
miral Nelson — the  Victory — on  October  21, 
1805,  just  before  going  into  action  against 


NELSON'S  FAMOUS  SIGNAL. 


115 


the  combined  fleets  of  France  and  Spain. 
Nelson  commanded  a  British  fleet  of  twenty- 
seven  ships.  The  enemy's  force  was  thirty- 
three  ships.  The  odds  were  against  the 
English.  Nelson  was  the  bravest  and  best 
of  commanders,  and  his  men  had  perfect  trust 
in  him.  His  signal  expressed  the  proud  con- 


SIGNAL  AT 
TRAFALGAR. 


FIG.  40. — Nelson's  signal  before  going  into  action  at  the  battle 
of  Trafalgar — England  expects  every  man  will  do  his  duty. 

fidence  of  the  commander  in  chief  and  of  the 
country  at  home  in  "  every  man  "  of  the  Brit- 
ish fleet.  England  expects  that  every  man 
will  do  his  duty*  The  trust  was  justified. 

*  In  this  message  the  emphasis  is  on  every,  and  not  on  duty, 
as  it  is  often  incorrectly  spoken. 


116    THE  FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 


At  the  end  of  the  battle  nineteen  of  the  en- 
emy's ships  had  been  captured  or  destroyed, 
and  the  power  of  France  on  the  sea  annihi- 
lated. Nelson's  signal  is  the  full  expression 
of  the  spirit  in  which  great  deeds  are  done. 

UNITED    STATES    WEATHER   BUREAU    SIGNALS. 

In  most  cities  of  the  United  States  the 
local  observer  of  the  Weather  Service  dis- 
plays signals  to  indicate  the  probabilities  as 
to  coming  weather  and  winds. 


N.  E.  winds.    S.  E.  winds.    N.  W.  winds.   S.  W.  winds. 

FIG.  41.— Storm  signals. 
(Great  Lakes.)  (On  the  coast.) 


Scuterly  winds.       Westerly  winds. 

Fio.  42. — Information  signals. 


Fio.  43. — Hurricane  signal. 


WEATHER  SIGNALS.  H7 

EXPLANATION  OF  STORM,  INFORMATION,  AND  HURRICANE 
SIGNALS. 

Storm  Signal. — A  red  flag  with  a  black  center  indicates 
that  a  storm  of  marked  violence  is  expected. 

The  pennants  displayed  with  the  flags  indicate  the  direc- 
tion of  the  wind  ;  red,  easterly  (from  northeast  to  south) ;  white, 
westerly  (from  southwest  to  north).  The  pennant  above  the 
flag  indicates  that  the  wind  is  expected  to  blow  from  the  north- 
erly quadrants  ;  below,  from  the  southerly  quadrants. 

By  night  a  red  light  indicates  easterly  winds,  and  a  white 
light  above  a  red  light,  westerly  winds. 

Information  Signal. — (Red  or  white  pennant  displayed 
alone.) — When  displayed  at  stations  on  the  Great  Lakes  indi- 
cates that  winds  are  expected  which  may  prove  dangerous  to 
small  vessels,  the  red  pennant  indicating  easterly  and  the  white 
pennant  westerly  winds. 

When  the  red  pennant  is  displayed  at  stations  on  the  Atlan- 
tic, Pacific,  and  Gulf  coasts  it  indicates  that  the  local  observer 
has  received  information  from  the  central  office  of  a  storm  cov- 
ering a  limited  area,  dangerous  only  for  vessels  about  to  sail  to 
certain  points,  and  serves  as  a  notification  to  shipmasters  that 
information  will  be  given  them  upon  application  to  the  local 
observer.  Only  the  red  pennant  is  displayed  on  the  coasts. 

Hurricane  Signal. — Two  red  flags  with  black  centers,  dis- 
played one  above  the  other,  indicate  the  expected  approach  of 
tropical  hurricanes,  and  also  of  those  extremely  severe  and 
dangerous  storms  which  occasionally  move  across  the  Lakes 
and  northern  Atlantic  coast. 

No  night  information  or  hurricane  signals  are  displayed. 

WEATHER    SIGNALS. 

(See  Fig.  44.) 

Five  flags  are  employed  to  indicate  com- 
ing rain,  snow,  cold  waves,  and  other  changes 
of  temperature,  as  below : 


118        THE  FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 


No.  1. — A  square 
white  flag. 


No.  2.— A  square 
blue  flag. 


No.  3. — A  square  flag, 
half  ivhite,  half  blue. 


Fair  weather. 


Rain  or  snow. 


Local  rain  or  snow. 


No.  U.—A  triangular  black 
pennant. 


No.  5.— A  square  white  flag 
with  a  black  center. 


Temperature. 


Cold  wave. 


FlO.  44. 


INTERPRETATION  OF  DISPLAYS. 

alone,  indicates  fair  weather,  stationary  temperature, 
alone,  indicates  rain  or  snow,  stationary  temperature, 
alone,  indicates  local  rain  or  snow,  stationary  tem- 


with  No.  4  above  it,  indicates  fair  weather,  warmer, 
with  No.  4  below  it,  indicates  fair  weather,  colder, 
with  No.  4  above  it,  indicates  rain  or  snow,  warmer, 
with  No.  4  below  it,  indicates  rain  or  snow,  colder. 


No.  1, 

No.  2, 

No.  3, 
perature. 

No.  1, 

No.  1, 

No.  2, 

No.  2, 

No.  3,  with  No.  4  above  it,  indicates  local  rain  or  snow, 
warmer. 

No.  3,  with  No.  4  below  it,  indicates  local  rain  or  snow, 
colder. 

SALUTES. 

Salutes  are  exchanged  between  vessels  at 
sea  or  in  ports  in  various  ways.  In  former 
times  the  flag  was  dipped  (that  is,  lowered 
smoothly  to  about  half  mast  and  quickly 


SALUTES.  119 

hoisted  again)  and  the  topsails  lowered.  Or, 
the  course  of  the  saluting  vessel  was  slightly 
altered.  When  the  Mayflower  was  coming 
to  New  England  in  1620,  she  met  a  small 
French  vessel — "  when  we  drew  near  her,  we 
put  forth  our  ancient,*  and  she  luffed  up  the 
wind  to  us." 

England  from  early  days  claimed  the  sov- 
ereignty of  the  narrow  seas  that  washed  her 
coasts,  and  required  foreign  vessels  meeting 
an  English  man-of-war  to  dip  their  colors 
and  to  lower  their  sails  as  a  salute.  In  the 
year  1200  a  formal  ordinance  was  issued  in- 
structing English  ships  of  war  to  exact  this 
homage.  In  1554  a  Spanish  fleet  was  bring- 
ing Philip  II,  King  of  Spain,  to  England  for 
his  marriage  with  Mary,  Queen  of  England. 
It  fell  in  with  an  English  squadron,  and  as 
the  salute  was  not  promptly  given,  the  Eng- 
lish admiral  fired  on  the  Spaniards,  who 
then  struck  their  colors  and  lowered  their 
topsails. 

Perpetual  difficulties  arose  between  the 
Dutch,  the  French,  and  the  English  in  the 
narrow  seas  on  account  of  these  salutes ; 

*  Ancient  =  ensign.    It  was  probably  the  cross  of  St.  George, 
as  the  Mayflower  was  an  English  vessel. 


120        THE  FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 

and  in  1654  a  treaty  between  England  and 
Holland  expressly  provided  that  all  Dutch 
vessels  should  acknowledge  the  English  sov- 
ereignty by  striking  the  flag  and  lowering 
the  topsails.  A  treaty  with  France  in  1673 
provided  that  the  war  vessels  of  both  nations 
should  dispense  with  salutes. 

England  stoutly  upheld  her  claim  to  be 
mistress  of  the  narrow  seas  for  more  than 
five  hundred  years.  At  the  present  time  all 
vessels  on  the  seas  (more  than  a  marine 
league  from  the  shore)  are  on  an  absolute 
equality.  Vessels  visiting  a  foreign  port 
salute  the  foreign  flag  first  by  firing  a  pre- 
scribed number  of  guns ;  and  their  salute  is 
promptly  returned,  gun  for  gun.  All  doubt- 
ful cases  are  settled  by  sending  a  junior  officer 
to  make  arrangements  beforehand,  and  diffi- 
culties never  arise.  There  is  a  strict  code  of 
naval  etiquette  that  is  entirely  familiar  to  all 
concerned. 

Surrender  is  signified  by  hoisting  a  white 
flag,  or  by  hoisting  the  flag  of  the  conqueror 
above  the  flag  of  the  conquered.  A  flag 
hoisted  at  half  mast  with  the  union  down- 
ward is  a  sign  of  distress,  or  of  some  accident. 
A  yellow  flag  signifies  that  there  is  sickness 


THE  FLAGS  OF  FRANCE.  121 

on  board.  It  is  allowable  to  hoist  "  false  col- 
ors " — a  flag  not  your  own — on  a  ship,  to  de- 
ceive an  enemy  in  time  of  war. 

A  merchant  ship,  for  example,  chased  by 
an  enemy,  would  be  justified  in  hoisting  the 
flag  of  a  neutral  nation  to  make  the  pursuer 
abandon  the  chase.  A  man-of-war  might  hoist 
her  enemy's  flag  to  entice  the  foreign  ship 
within  gunshot,  etc.  But  it  would  not  be  con- 
sidered honorable  to  hoist  a  signal  of  distress 
and  to  bring  the  hostile  ship  near  on  an  errand 
of  mercy,  in  order,  afterward,  to  destroy 'her. 
There  is  a  line  of  distinction  in  such  matters 
that  is  observed  among  all  civilized  nations. 

THE   FLAGS    OF   FRANCE. 

Flags  came  into  general  use  in  Europe 
about  the  seventh  century.  They  were  often 
religious  in  their  origin.  The  oriflamme  of 
Charlemagne  (A.  D.  800)  was  given  him  by 
the  pope,  who  at  the  same  time  commemo- 
rated the  foundation  of  the  new  empire  of  the 
West  by  striking  a  medal  with  the  motto, 
Henovatio  Imperil* 

*  The  Roman  Empire  was  divided  into  the  Eastern  and  the 
Western  Empires  in  A.  D.  364,  and  it  came  to  its  end  when 
Rome  was  captured,  in  A.  D.  476,  by  Odoacer,  King  of  the 


122    THE  FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 


The  cords  to  Charlemagne's  banner  were 
red  and  white  and  blue,  and  these  afterward 

became  the  colors  of 
France  by  a  mere  co- 
incidence. 

The  blue  hood  or 
cape  of  St.  Martin,  a 
religious  banner,  was 
used  by  Clovis,  King 
of  the  Franks,  about 
A.  D.  428.  St.  Mar- 
tin  was  a  soldier  as 
well  as  a  saint,  and 
his  banner  was  a  truly 
warlike  one.  The 
oriflamme  of  Charle- 
magne was  the  ban- 
ner of  the  emperor 
rather  than  the  stand- 
ard of  the  empire. 

The  famous  ori- 
flamme of  St.  Denis 
was  originally  merely 
the  banner  of  an  abbey  ;  but  it  afterward 
took  its  place  in  the  armies  of  the  French 


Pio.  45.— The  oriflamme  of 
Charlemagne,  A.  D.  800. 


Heruli.    Charlemnpne  founded  a  new  empire  called  "of  the 
West,"  and  the  medal  celebrates  the  "  renewal  of  the  empire." 


V. 


TRIPOLI.  MERCHANT^ 

(NOW  ITALIAN) 


ALGIERS 

(NOW  FRENCH) 


TUNIS,  WAR 

(NOW  FRENCH) 


FRANCE 


FRENCH  COCHIN-CHINA 


MADAGA&CAU 

(NOW  FRENCH) 


THE  FLAGS  OF  FRANCE. 


123 


king,  and  became  a  truly  national  symbol. 
A  national  flag  must  be  uniform,  universal, 
obligatory.  It  must  represent  the  beliefs  of 
the  nation  and  its  unity. 

The  oriflamme  was  in  the  first  place- 
about  A.  D.  630 — a  sacred  banner  to  be  carried 
in  processions  by  the  monks  of  the  Abbey  of 
St.  Denis,  near  Paris  ;  and  miraculous  powers 
were  attributed  to  it.  The  Counts  of  Vexin 
were  the  hereditary  knights-banneret  of  this 
abbey,  and  so  long  as  they  held  this  office,  and 
the  abbey  lands  that  pertained  to  it,  the  ban< 


FIG.  46. — The  oriflamrae  of  St.  Denis  in  the  form  employed  in 
the  thirteenth  century.  In  later  times  there  were  only  two 
points  to  the  pennon-tail. 

ner  had  a  local  meaning  only.  But  about 
A.  D.  1100  the  King  of  France  held  this  office 
and  the  lands,  and  the  banner  became,  in  this 
way,  his  banner,  and  in  some  fashion  the  ban- 


12-4    THE  FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 

ner  of  France  also.  It  stood  for  religion,  too, 
and  its  reputation  for  working  miracles  was 
a  great  help  to  the  king. 

It  was  first  displayed  by  a  king  of  France 
in  1124,  and  often  afterward.  The  kings 
went  in  great  state  to  the  abbey  when  the 
banner  was  brought  out.  It  was  confided  to 
the  care  of  one  of  the  bravest  knights,  who 
swore  "  to  carry  that  standard  to  the  honor 
and  profit  of  the  king  and  of  his  realm  ; 
never  to  lay  it  down  for  fear  of  death  or  of 
any  hazard ;  and  to  do  his  duty  everywhere." 
This  brave  oath  was  lived  up  to  by  a  succes- 
sion of  the  stoutest  knights  of  France. 

The  miraculous  power  of  the  oriflamme 
was  fully  believed  in  by  the  soldiery.  In 
the  war  with  Flanders,  in  1382,  it  is  recorded 
that  "  all  the  morning  there  had  been  so  great 
and  so  dense  a  fog  that  scarcely  could  the 
men  see  one  another.  But  so  soon  as  the 
knight  that  carried  the  oriflamme  proceeded 
to  unfurl  it  and  to  raise  the  staff  aloft,  this 
fog  all  at  once  fell  and  dispersed — the  sky 
becoming  pure  and  clear."  Others  said  that 
a  white  dove  then  appeared  and  sat  on  the 
king's  banner  for  a  good  omen. 

It  was  supposed  by  the  soldiers  that  an 


THE  FLAGS  OF  FRANCE.  125 

army  could  not  be  defeated  while  it  carried 
the  oriflamine,  but  the  troops  of  St.  Louis  of 
France  (Louis  IX)  were  defeated  in  the  sev- 
enth Crusade  by  the  Saracens,  the  king  was 
made  captive,  and  the  oriflamine  fell  into  in- 
fidel hands  (A.D.  1250). 

Like  most  of  the  flags  carried  by  the 
Crusaders  the  oriflamme  terminated  in  three 
points,  to  mark  the  fact  that  the  French  were 
fighting  for  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  against 
the  Saracens,  whose  war  cry  was  "  there  is  no 
other  god  but  Allah."  In  earlier  times  such 
flags  usually  terminated  in  five  points,  and 
the  number  of  points  was  then  without  any 
special  meaning. 

After  the  Crusades  pointed  flags  were 
usually  of  the  pennon  form;  they  termi- 
nated either  in  a  single  point  or  in  two 
points — a  swallow-tail,  so  called.  In  a  gen- 
eral way,  it  is  safe  to  refer  a  flag  of  three 
points  to  the  period  of  the  Crusades  ;  its 
three  points  were  a  symbol  of  the  Trinity. 

The  oriflamme  continued  to  be  used  as  a 
national  flag  throughout  the  thirteenth  and 
fourteenth  centuries.  It  was  taken  from  the 
abbey  by  the  king  in  state  for  the  last  time 
in  1415.  In  the  fifteenth  century,  during  the 


126    THE  FLAGS  OP  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 


wars  with  the  English,  it  became  a  red  en- 
sign with  a  white  cross.  In  later  years  the 
oriflamme  gradually  lost  its  national  charac- 
ter, and  the  royal  standard  took  its  place.  It 
was  the  king's  standard  that  was  advanced 

by  the  Maid  of  Or- 
leans  (1429  -'31); 
although  she  also 
carried  a  white  ban- 
ner with  religious 
emblems. 

Since  the  time 
of  Louis  VII  the 
arms  of  France  have 
been  fleurs  -de-lis 
(flowers-de-luce,  the 

FIG.  47.— The  arms  of  France—    {Y{^\     borne     OU      a 
golden  lilies  on  a  blue  field.  „     ,  , 

field   01    blue.      In 

1179  his  coat  of  arms  was  a  blue  shield 
sprinkled  with  many  fleurs-de-lis.  Charles 
V,  in  1364,  reduced  their  number  to  three; 
and  three  fleurs-de-lis  on  an  azure  field  has 
been  since  then  the  royal  shield  of  France. 
No  one  knows  the  reason  for  the  adoption 
of  the  fleur-de-lis  as  the  emblem  of  the 
French  kings.  The  emblem  itself  is  very 
old,  and  it  has  been  displayed  in  many 


THE  FLAGS  OF  FRANCE.  127 

places.  The  Empress  Theodora  of  Constan- 
tinople (A.  D.  527)  wore  one  in  her  crown. 

The  emblem  of  the  city  of  Florence  is  a 
fleur-de-lis  that  was  originally  white.  After 
a  bloody  battle  (A.  D.  1251)  its  color  was 
changed  to  red,  in  memory  of  the  brave 
Florentines  who  perished,  it  is  said. 

From  the  thirteenth  century  onward  till 
the  reign  of  Louis  XIV  the  blue  flag  with 
fleurs-de-lis  was  more  and  more  used  as  a  na- 
tional ensign.  White  was  the  color  of  the 
Huguenot  party  in  France  with  Henry  IV  at 
their  head,  but  the  royal  standard  was  blue 
as  before.  Louis  XIV  (acceded  1643)  was  an 
absolute  ruler  and  extremely  jealous  of  his 
own  authority.  The  high  officers  of  his  army 
were  called  colonels-general,  and  the  troops 
under  their  command  were  the  soldiers  of  the 
colonel-general  quite  as  much  as  they  were  the 
soldiers  of  the  king.  Each  colonel-general 
bore  a  white  flag  as  a  sign  of  his  pre-eminence. 

The  king  determined  to  be  master  of  his 
own  army,  and  he  assumed  for  himself  the 
office  of  colonel-general  of  all  the  troops,  and 
took  the  white  flag  charged  with  the  royal 
coat  of  arms  in  the  center  as  his  personal 
standard.  "The  white  flag  of  the  Bour- 


128        THE  FLAGS  OP  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 

bons  "  has  no  more  ancient  origin  than  this 
It  represents,  as  no  other  flag  does,  the  su- 
preme authority  of  a  king. 

The  colonels  of  regiments  at  this  time 
had  tricolored  flags — red,  white,  and  blue. 
And  red,  white,  and  blue  were  the  per- 
sonal colors  of  King  Henry  IV  of  France 
(died  1610).  Red  and  blue  were  the  colors 
of  the  city  of  Paris,  and  white  was  the  royal 
color.  In  1794  the  French  revolutionary  con- 
vention formally  adopted  the  tricolored  flag 
as  the  national  standard,  as  the  flag  of  the 
French  people.  It  has  three  vertical  bars  of 
equal  width.  The  bar  nearest  the  staff  is 
blue,  the  center  bar  is  white,  the  fly  is  red. 
The  tricolor  of  France  is  shown  in  Plate  V. 

In  1792  the  revolted  people  of  Paris  took 
a  red  flag  as  their  symbol.  By  a  strange,  un- 
conscious choice  the  red  flag  has  since  become 
the  standard  of  all  revolt,  the  flag  of  any 
angry  and  violent  protest.  It  is  not  the  flag 
of  a  particular  cause,  but  it  has  covered  all 
kinds  of  revolts,  excusable  and  inexcusable, 
against  all  kinds  of  constituted  authority,  just 
and  unjust. 

It  has  represented  the  assassinations  by 
the  Nihilists  in  Russia  and  the  bloody  mas- 


THE  RED  FLAG.  129 

sacres  by  the  anarchists  in  France,  as  well 
as  the  peaceful  protests  of  labor  against 
the  oppression  of  employers.  It  has  stood 
for  causes  with  which  every  generous  heart 
must  sympathize,  as  well  as  for  revolts  that 
every  good  citizen  must  abhor  and  condemn. 

A  flag  that  has  served  as  the  standard  of 
the  murderers  who  shot  the  innocent  hostages 
in  Paris  in  1871  discredits,  so  far  as  a  flag 
can,  movements  and  aspirations  otherwise 
worthy  of  respect  and  sympathy. 

The  red  flag  is  unique  among  symbols. 
It  is  the  only  banner  known  to  history  that 
stands  for  no  cause  in  particular  and  that 
symbolizes  no  positive  creed,  belief,  or  hope. 
It  is  the  banner  of  destructive  overthrow  of 
things  as  they  are  at  the  moment,  not  the 
symbol  of  a  desire  to  reconstitute  things  as 
they  ought  to  be  in  the  future.  Even  the 
black  flag  of  piracy  stands  for  a  positive 
desire. 

If  we  compare  the  meaning  of  the  red 
flag  with  that  of  the  ensign  of  revolted  New 
England  (Fig.  8)  we  shall  comprehend  this 
difference.  The  flag  of  the  colonists  stood 
for  their  union  to  secure,  by  force  if  neces- 
sary, certain  specific  liberties  that  were  the 
10 


130         THE  FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 

birthright  of  all  Englishmen.  It  represented 
positive  beliefs  and  hopes,  and  a  union  for 
the  purpose  of  maintaining  them. 

The  red  flag  represents  anarchy — over- 
throw, revolt — as  its  only  ideal,  and  a  transi- 
tory union  of  forces  for  the  purpose  of  at- 
taining chaos.  Until  the  essential  character 
of  the  red  flag  is  changed,  it  is  the  duty  of 
every  law-abiding  citizen  to  oppose  all  causes 
that  shelter  themselves  under  this  symbol. 
If  a  cause  is  just,  let  it  choose  its  own  sym- 
bol and  let  it  be  judged  on  its  own  merits. 
The  most  righteous  cause  can  not  afford  to 
appear  under  colors  like  these. 

When  Napoleon  I  became  emperor,  in 
1804,  the  tricolor  remained  the  flag  of  the 
nation.  The  armies  of  France  had  won  such 
amazing  victories  under  this  standard  during 
the  years  since  1789  that  it  was  endeared 
not  only  to  the  soldiers  but  to  the  people. 
Every  Frenchman  was  proud  of  it.  Napo- 
leon, who  was  skillful  in  directing  public 
and  private  feeling  into  channels  that  were 
favorable  to  his  own  fortunes,  did  not  fail 
to  use  the  flag  to  strengthen  his  influence. 

The  colors  of  every  regiment  in  the  army 
were  inscribed  "The  Emperor  to  the  - 


THE  FLAGS  OF  FRANCE. 

Regiment,"  and  the  soldiers  were  thus  con- 
tinually reminded  that  their  very  flag  was  a 
gift  from  their  chief.  Their  fortunes  de- 
pended on  his  favor.  The  regimental  stand- 
ards were  borne  on  staffs  with  the  imperial 
eagle  at  the  head.  Napoleon  dreamed  of  a 
new  empire  of  the  West  not  less  extended 
than  that  of  Charlemagne,  and  he  chose  his 
symbols  so  as  to  inspire  the  imagination  of 
his  subjects. 

On  each  flag  he  inscribed  the  names  of 
the  battles  in  which  it  had  been  victorious. 
No  soldier  could  see  his  battle  flag  without  a 
proud  thought  of  the  victories  of  Lodi,  Monte- 
bello,  Arcola,  Marengo,  Austerlitz,  and  a  hun- 
dred others.  The  Legion  of  Honor  was  insti- 
tuted, and  its  cross  was  bestowed  on  French- 
men who  had  served  their  country  well. 

Whenever  a  regiment  had  captured  col- 
ors from  the  enemy  in  battle  the  cross  of 
the  Legion  ^of  Honor  was  awarded  to  the 
regiment,  and  it  was  suspended  from  the 
staff  of  the  standard.  Not  every  French 
soldier  could  win  the  cross  of  the  Legion  of 
Honor  for  himself,  but  he  could  at  least  help 
to  win  it  for  his  regiment.  A  like  custom 
prevails  in  other  armies. 


132        THE  FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 

Russian  regiments  that  have  captured 
the  colors  of  an  enemy  under  fire  receive  the 
cross  of  St.  George  as  a  decoration  for  their 
flag.  Prussian  regimental  colors  are  deco- 
rated with  the  iron  cross,  and  also  with  the 
ribbons  of  the  various  war  medals.  The 
standards  of  the  regiments  of  the  German 
army  are  decorated  with  a  ribbon  of  the 
German  colors  (red,  white,  and  black)  fitted 
with  clasps  of  gold  engraved  with  the  names 
of  battles  in  which  the  regiment  has  fought. 
The  same  custom  prevails  in  the  armies  of 
Italy  and  Austria. 

In  England  and  in  the  United  States  the 
names  of  battles  are  inscribed  upon  the  regi- 
mental flags.  England  gives  the  Victoria 
cross  to  individuals  "for  conspicuous  brav- 
ery," and  the  Congress  of  the  United  States 
awards  the  medal  of  honor  "for  gallantry  in 
action."  It  would  be  well  to  accord  these 
distinctions  to  regiments  and  to  ships  as  well 
as  to  individuals. 

The  imperial  standard  chosen  by  Napo- 
leon was  blue.  It  bore  a  golden  eagle  for 
the  empire,  and  the  field  was  sprinkled  with 
golden  bees — Napoleon's  personal  emblem. 
The  emblems  of  the  ancient  monarchy  of 


THE   FLAGS  OF  FRANCE.  133 

France  were  forgotten  during  the  momen- 
tous years  from  the  revolution  (1789)  to 
the  battle  of  Waterloo  (1815).  The  coats 
of  arms  of  the  new  nobility  created  by 
Napoleon  did  not  bear  crosses  and  scallop 
shells  (the  symbols  of  the  Crusades),  but 
emblems  derived  from  his  own  wars — pyra- 
mids, swords,  etc. 

At  the  restoration  of  the  monarchy  in 
1815  King  Louis  XVIII  took  the  white 
flag  of  the  Bourbons  with  the  royal  arms 
(azure,  three  fleurs-de-lis  or)  in  the  center. 
The  eagle  at  the  head  of  the  staff  was 
replaced  by  the  fleur-de-lis.  The  tricolor 
was  abolished,  but  not  forgotten.  The  mon- 
archy had  no  victories  to  show  like  those 
that  had  been  gained  under  the  nation's 
flag. 

In  1830  Charles  X,  the  brother  of  Louis 
XVIII,  was  overthrown  by  a  new  revolution, 
and  the  new  king — Louis  Philippe — restored 
the  tricolor  in  1831.  The  new  king  called 
himself  "the  King  of  the  French  People." 
He  was  no  longer  the  King  of  France  "  by 
divine  right."  The  white  flag  of  the  Bour- 
bons represented  the  theory  that  the  king 
ruled  by  divine  right.  The  tricolor  repre- 


134        THE   FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 

sented  the  modem  theory  that  he  ruled  by 
the  will  of  the  people.* 

At  the  head  of  the  flagstaff  Louis  Philippe 
set  the  Gallic  cock  for  an  emblem  of  France. 
This  emblem  was  one  of  the  caprices  of  Louis 
XIV.  The  cock  was  the  emblem  of  the 
Gothic  or  of  the  Gallic  legionaries  of  Home 
(see  Fig.  19)  it  is  true,  but  it  had  no  really 
continuous  historic  meaning,  and  it  did  not 
long  remain.  The  coat  of  arms  of  1830  bore 
the  words  Liberty  and  order. 

In  1848  a  French  republic  was  pro- 
claimed after  a  new  revolution.  The  tricolor 
continued  to  be  the  flag  of  France,  but  the 
words  Libert&y  egalite,  fraternite  (liberty, 
equality,  brotherhood)  were  inscribed  on  the 
center  bar  of  white,  as  well  as  the  word 
Unite  (unity).  The  first  three  words  repre- 
sented the  social  idea  of  the  time. 

In  1851  Napoleon  III  (the  nephew  of  Na- 
poleon I)  became  "  Emperor  of  the  French." 
The  tricolor  was  inscribed  with  the  words 
Honneur  et  patrie  (honor  and  our  country), 

*  This  is  a  theory  that  the  world  owes  to  the  English.  One 
of  their  famous  moralists  has  bluntly  said,  "There  is  no  m«>tv 
a  divine  right  for  kings  than  for  constables,"  implying  that 
the  consent  of  the  governed  is  the  only  warrant  for  power  of 
any  sort. 


THE  FLAGS  OF  FRANCE.  135 

and  the  imperial  eagle  reappeared  at  the 
head  of  the  standard  and  on  the  imperial 
coat  of  arms. 

In  1871,  after  the  disastrous  war  with 
Germany,  the  red  flag  of  the  Commune  strove 
with  the  tricolor  for  pre-eminence  in  France. 
The  tricolor  won,  as  it  deserved  to  win,  and 
the  French  Republic  to-day  flies  its  historic 
flag  of  three  colors,  which  stands  for  a  cen- 
tury of  struggle  and  for  a  hundred  victories. 
The  coat  of  arms  of  republican  France  is 
blue,  and  it  bears  the  golden  fasces — a  battle- 
axe  whose  handle  is  composed  of  many  sepa- 
rate rods  bound  together  with  scarlet  bands. 
This  was  an  ancient  symbol  of  officers  of  the 
Roman  Republic. 

The  tricolor  is,  no  doubt,  firmly  estab- 
lished as  the  flag  of  the  French  people.  It 
has  not  been  without  its  perils,  however,  even 
in  late  times.  In  1878  affairs  in  France  were 
in  confusion.  There  is  little  doubt  that  the 
Count  of  Chambord  (grandson  of  Charles  X) 
could  have  taken  his  place  upon  the  throne 
as  King  Henry  V  if  he  had  been  willing  to 
accept  the  tricolor  as  his  flag — that  is,  if  he 
had  been  willing  to  rule  as  a  king  chosen 
by  the  French  people,  and  not  as  a  king 


136        THE  FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 

by  divine  right  of  succession  from  other 
Bourbon  kings,  his  ancestors. 

It  was  comprehended  by  every  French- 
man in  1878  that  the  tricolor  stood  for  one 
theory  of  government,  and  the  majority  of 
Frenchmen  were  determined  to  have  a  gov- 
ernment of  this  sort.  It  was  equally  well 
understood  that  the  white  flag  of  the  Bour- 
bons represented  a  theory  of  government 
that  France  had  rejected,  once  for  all,  in 
1789. 

The  real  issue  was  between  two  theories 
of  government :  Shall  the  French  people  be 
governed  in  this  way,  or  in  this  other  way  ? 
The  question  discussed  was  not  a  question 
of  real  issues,  but  a  matter  of  symbols, 
Under  which  of  two  flags  shall  the  king 
reign,  if  so  be  we  have  a  king?  The  heir  to 
the  throne  made  a  choice  of  a  symbol— of  a 
flag — and  instantly  the  matter  in  hand  was 
settled.  The  French  people  would  not  ac- 
cept the  chosen  symbol. 

The  history  of  the  flags  of  France  affords 
a  most  striking  example  of  the  power  of 
symbols.  It  shows  that  a  symbol  has  a  life 
of  its  own  and  a  character ;  that  it  has  some- 
thing like  a  pei-sonality  and  may  represent 


THE  FLAGS  OF  FRANCE.  137 

the  cause  or  the  aspiration  of  a  people  in 
much  the  same  way  that  a  chosen  leader 
might  do. 

The  oriflanime  of  St.  Denis  stood  for  the 
age  of  simple  faith.  The  soldiery  unques- 
tioningly  followed  this  religious  banner  to 
many  victories.  At  the  time  of  the  Cru- 
sades the  matter  in  men's  minds  was  the 
struggle  of  the  Christians  to  possess  the  sa- 
cred city  of  Jerusalem  and  the  holy  sepul- 
cher  of  our  Lord.  In  these  times  a  cross 
was  added  to  the  plain  red  surface  of  the 
oriflanime.  The  cross  went  forth  to  subdue 
the  crescent.  The  symbol  of  Christ  was  at 
war  with  the  symbol  of  Mohammed. 

The  oriflamme  was  borne  alongside  the 
personal  banner  of  the  king,  and  it  added 
force  to  his  power.  As  years  went  on  the 
real  force  of  the  kingdom  was  more  and  more 
concentrated  in  the  king.  All  men  saw  that 
if  the  kingdom  were  to  endure  the  king 
must  be  powerful.  The  Maid  of  Orleans — • 
Joan  of  Arc — though  most  religious,  advanced 
the  king's  banner  and  not  the  oriflamme. 

Louis  XIV  gathered  the  whole  power  of 
France  into  his  own  hands.  The  white  flag 
of  the  Bourbons  was  a  symbol  that  the  semi- 


138         THE  FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 

independence  of  the  provinces  of  France  had 
been  replaced  by  an  authority  centered  in 
the  person  of  the  king. 

The  wild  outburst  of  the  revolution  of 
1789  overturned  forever  the  ancient  theory 
that  the  monarchs  of  France  ruled  by  divine 
right.  It  threw  the  doors  wide  open  for 
the  admission  of  new  ideas.  The  French 
nation — the  solidarity  of  the  French  people 

—was  born  then,  and  the  tricolor  was  its 
symbol. 

The  idea  of  nationality  took  a  firm  hold 
of  the  imaginations  of  Frenchmen  at  that 
time,  and  it  has  never  been  lost.  They  have 
held  fast  to  its  symbol — the  tricolor — with 
equal  tenacity.  The  inscriptions  on  the  flag 

—Liberty,  equality,  brotherhood,  or  Honor 
and  our  country — have  not  endured  simply 
because  they  were  not  adequate  to  symbolize 
the  permanent  aspirations  and  ideals  of  the 
people.  The  tricolor  has  persisted  because 
it  represents  the  feeling  of  all  Frenchmen. 
I  f  a  full  history  of  these  symbols  were  to  be 
written,  it  would  be  a  history  of  France,  or 
rather  of  the  aspirations  and  beliefs  of  French- 
men. 


VI. 


GERMANY 

IMPERIAL 


flMAH  r,  MeftCMA  N  T 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS — THE  FLAGS 
OF    SOVEREIGN    STATES. 

THE  present  chapter  contains  a  brief  de- 
scription of  the  flags  of  most  of  the  sovereign 
states  of  the  world,  and  of  a  few  flags  that 
belong  to  states  not  sovereign.  Most  of 
these  flags  are  shown  in  Plates  I  to  X. 

Only  the  most  important  of  the  flags  of 
the  world  can  be  represented  here,  as  several 
countries  have  separate  imperial  or  royal, 
national,  naval,  war,  and  merchant  flags, 
and  changes  are  of  frequent  occurrence 
because  of  war  or  political  issues.  In  any 
discrepancy  between  the  plates  and  this 
chapter,  the  text  is  to  be  preferred. 

Andorra. — The  little  state  of  Andorra  has  a  flag 
divided  by  a  vertical  line  into  two  halves.  The  half 
nearest  the  staff  is  gold,  the  other  red.  The  colors 
are  those  of  the  old  Counts  of  Foix,  protectors  of 
the  state. 

139 


140        THE  FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 

Abyssinia. — The  coat  of  arms  of  Abyssinia  is  a 
lion  bearing  a  cross  and  wearing  a  crown  surmounted 
by  a  cross.  Its  ilag  probably  bears  this  symbol. 

Annam. — Annarn  has  a  flag  of  its  own.  It  is  a 
black  flag  nearly  covered  by  a  large  yellow  figure  like 
an  oblong  diamond  with  flashing  points.  The  king- 
dom is  a  protectorate  of  France. 

Algiers. — Algiers  has  been  a  French  colony  since 
io30.  Its  flag  has  seven  horizontal  stripes,  white 
(uppermost),  blue,  red,  white,  red,  blue,  and  white. 
(See  Plate  V.) 

Arabia.— Arabia  is  part  under  Turkish  rule.  Its 
flag  is  shown  in  Plate  X.  The  flag  of  Mohammed 
(and  of  the  Fatimite  caliphs)  was  green.  The  first 
flag  was  the  green  turban  of  the  prophet,  and  was  un- 
furled in  A.  D.  626.  The  green  flag  was  preserved  in 
Cairo  till  A.  D.  1215,  and  is  now  in  Constantinople^ 
together  with  other  relics.  When  a  "Holy  war" 
against  unbelievers  in  Mohammedanism  is  declared 
this  banner  is  displayed  to  the  "  true  believers."  The 
Abbaside  caliphs  of  Bagdad  (A.  D.  750-1258)  used  a 
black  flag.  The  Ommiade  caliphs  in  Arabia  (661- 
750)  and  in  Spain  (755-1031)  had  a  white  banner. 

Argentine  Republic. — Its  flag  is  composed  of  three 
horizontal  stripes — blue,  white,  and  blue,  and  ihe  mid- 
dle stripe  bears  a  sun  nearer  the  staff  than  the  draw- 
ing in  Plate  IX.  The  merchant  flag  omits  the  sun. 

Australian  Commonwealth. — Its  merchant  flag  is 
the  British  merchant  flag,  with  five  stars  added  at  the 
outer  edge  and  one  under  the  union  for  its  compo- 
nents: Queensland,  New  South  Wales,  Victoria,  South 
Australia,  Western  Australia,  and  Tasmania. 


THE  FLAGS  OF  SOVEREIGN  STATES. 

Austria-Hungary.— See  Plate  VI.  The  flag  oi 
Austria  is  red,  white,  and  red,  arranged  in  three  hori- 
zontal stripes.  These  are  the  ancient  colors  of  Aus- 
tria and  of  the  Hapsburgs.  The  flag  of  Hungary  is 
a  tricolor  of  horizontal  stripes,  red  (uppermost),  white, 
and  green.  The  war  flag  of  the  Austro-Hungarian 
monarchy  is  red,  white,  and  red,  with  the  Austrian 
coat  of  arms  on  the  middle  stripe.  The  flag  of  the 
merchant  ships  of  the  kingdom  has  its  top  stripe  red, 
its  middle  stripe  white,  and  its  bottom  stripe  red  for 
half  the  length,  green  for  the  rest,  and  the  white 
stripe  bears  the  coat  of  arms  of  Hungary  as  well  as 
that  of  Austria. 

The  coat  of  arms  of  Hungary  is  not  well  shown  in 
Plate  VI.  It  is  somewhat  plainer  in  Plate  X.  Every 
province  of  the  empire,  as  Bohemia  (two  horizontal 
stripes,  the  uppermost  white,  the  lower  one  red) ; 
Moravia  (two  horizontal  stripes,  yellow  and  red) ;  Si- 
lesia (two  horizontal  stripes,  black  and  yellow) ;  Dal- 
matia  (two  horizontal  stripes,  yellow  and  blue) ;  Bos- 
nia (three  horizontal  stripes,  red,  blue,  and  white)  ; 
Croatia  (three  horizontal  stripes,  blue,  white,  and 
red),  etc.,  has  its  own  flag.  The  multitude  of  minor 
states  that  make  up  the  dual  monarchy  have  separate 
flags  also. 

Some  of  these  flags  stand  for  a  history  centuries 
long.  The  red  and  white  of  Austria  is  certainly  as 
old  as  the  fourteenth  century.  The  flag  of  the  Holy 
Roman  Empire  was  yellow  with  a  black  eagle.  The 
eagle 'was  single-headed  till  the  fourteenth  century, 
when  it  was  changed  to  a  double-headed  eagle.  The 
arms  of  the  Greek  emperors  of  Constantinople  in  the 


THE  FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 

thirteenth  century  contained  a  double-headed  eagle, 
and  the  returning  Crusaders  brought  this  symbol  with 
them.  The  symbol  itself  is  far  older,  and  goes  back, 
in  Asia  Minor,  to  centuries  before  the  Christian  era. 

Baden. — See  GERMANY.  Its  colors,  gold  and  red, 
were  adopted  early  in  the  thirteenth  century. 

Bavaria.— See  GERMANY. 

Belgium.— See  Plate  VIII.  The  colors  of  the 
ancient  Duchy  of  Brabant  were  black,  yellow,  and 
red.  In  1831,  on  the  foundation  of  the  present 
kingdom,  the  tricolor  flag  of  Belgium  was  established. 
At  sea,  at  a  distance,  it  has  a  strong  resemblance  to 
the  ensign  of  France.  The  plate  shows  the  royal 
standard.  The  merchant  flag  is  the  same,  omitting 
the  coat  of  arms. 

Bohemia. — See  AUSTRIA-HUNGARY.  The  ancient 
arms  of  Bohemia  were  a  silver  lion  on  a  red  field,  and 
these  colors  are  perpetuated  in  the  flag. 

Bolivia.— See  Plate  IX.  The  flag  is  divided  into 
three  horizontal  stripes,  red  (uppermost),  gold,  and 
green.  The  center  of  the  war  flag  bears  the  coat  of 
arms. 

Bosnia. — See  AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. 

Brazil — The  field  of  the  flag  of  Brazil  is  green. 
On  the  field  is  a  yellow  diamond,  which  formerly  bore 
the  royal  coat  of  arms  of  Brazil.  The  flag  was  copied 
from  the  flag  of  Portugal  in  the  Indies  (see  PORTUGAL 
in  what  follows).  The  Brazilian  Republic  has  re- 
placed the  royal  coat  of  arms  by  a  constellation  of 
golden  stars  in  a  blue  fit-Id,  ;tnd  a  motto  Ordem  e 
progresso — order  and  progress — is  now  displayed  (see 
Plate  IX). 


VII. 


RUSSIA, 

IMPERIAL  STANDARD 


ITALY. 

HOYAL  3TAHOA*0 


THE  FLAGS  OP  SOVEREIGN  STATES.       143 

Bulgaria. — The  flag  of  Bulgaria  is  a  tricolor  of 
three  horizontal  stripes,  white  (uppermost),  green,  and 
red.  It  was  established  in  1879  to  replace  the  Rus- 
sian flag  that  had  formerly  been  in  use.  The  war  Hag 
bears  on  a  red  canton  the  crowned  golden  lion  of  the 
national  coat  of  arms.  The  colors  are  the  same  as 
those  of  Hungary,  but  their  changed  order  com- 
memorates the  freedom  of  Bulgaria  from  foreign  con- 
trol (see  Plate  VIII).  The  merchant  flag  of  Bulgaria 
is  plain  red. 

Burmah. — Its  white  flag  bears  a  red  circle  at  the 
center,  and  the  red  circle  is  charged  with  a  peacock. 

Canada. — See  Plate  III.  The  red  ensign  of 
Great  Britain  is  charged  with  the  Canadian  coat  of 
arms.  See  GREAT  BRITAIN,  COLONIES  OF. 

Cape  of  Good  Hope. — See  UNION  OF  SOUTH  AF- 
RICA. 

Chile. — The  ensign  of  Chile  is  divided  horizontally 
into  two  stripes,,  white  and  red,  and  on  the  upper 
stripe  is  a  blue  canton  bearing  a  single  white  star. 
The  national  standard  bears,  in  addition,  the  Chilean 
coat  of  arms  (see  two  pictures  in  Plate  IX). 

China. — See  two  pictures  in  Plate  IX.  The  im- 
perial standard  of  China  was  triangular  in  shape  and 
yellow  and  displayed  a  blue  dragon  and  a  red  ball. 
The  merchant  flag  was  blue,  bordered  with  red.  The 
flag  of  the  republic,  established  in  1912,  displayed  five 
horizontal  stripes,  from  top,  red,  yellow,  blue,  white, 
black,  typical  of  China  proper,  Manchuria,  Mongolia, 
Tibet,  and  Turkestan.  In  1915  China  returned  to 
the  imperial  form  of  government.  See  Plate  IX. 

Cochin-China. — See  Plate  V. 


144         THE  FLAGS  OP  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 

Colombia  (Republic  of).— See  Plate  IV.  The  up- 
per half  of  the  flag  is  gold.  The  other  half  is  divided 
horizontally  into  two  stripes,  blue  and  red.  On  the 
center  of  the  flag  is  a  red  circle  inclosing  nine  silver 
stars,  one  for  each  of  the  States. 

Costa  Rica. — The  flag  has  five  horizontal  stripes. 
The  center  stripe  is  red  and  is  wider  than  the  others. 
It  is  bordered  by  two  white  stripes,  and  the  outer 
stripes  are  both  blue.  The  war  flag  bears  the  na- 
tional coat  of  arms  (see  Plate  IV). 

Congo  Free  State. — This  was  annexed  by  Belgium 
in  1908.  Its  former  flag  is  on  Plate  X. 

Corea,  Korea,  or  Cho-sen. — After  the  Chino-Jap- 
anese  war  (1895)  China  relinquished  her  suzerainty 
over  Corea,  and  it  was  independent  till  1910,  when 
Japan  annexed  it  and  changed  its  name  to  Cho-sen. 
Its  former  flag  is  shown  on  Plate  IX. 

Croatia. — See  AUSTRIA-HUNGARY.  The  colors  are 
adopted  from  the  ancient  coat  of  arms  of  Croatia. 
Red,  white,  and  blue  are  the  national  colors  of  the 
Slavs. 

Cuba.— The  flag  of  "Cuba  libre"  is  composed  of 
five  horizontal  stripes,  alternate  blue  and  white.  At 
the  head  of  the  flag  is  a  red  half  diamond  bearing  a 
silver  star  (see  Plate  II).  The  flag  of  the  revolution- 
ary party  in  Porto  Rico  (1898)  bore  the  same  design, 
but  red  took  the  place  of  blue  in  the  Cuban  flag,  and 
blue  of  red. 

Dalmatia. — See  AUSTRIA-HUNGARY.  Blue  and 
gold,  the  colors  of  the  flag,  are  taken  from  the  na- 
tional coat  of  arms — three  leopards'  heads  of  gold  on 
a  blue  shield. 


THE  FLAGS  OF  SOVEREIGN  STATES.       145 

Denmark. — See  Plate  VIII,  two  pictures.  The 
raven  was  the  emblem  of  the  Danes  in  early  times, 
and  one  of  the  banners  of  the  Bayeux  tapestry  is  sup- 
posed to  represent  it.  In  the  year  1219  the  Danes 
were  Christians  and  were  engaged  in  war  with  the 
heathen  tribes  of  Prussia.  In  one  of  their  battles  the 
fortunes  of  the  day  were  against  them  until  a  sacred 
banner — the  Danebrog,  the  flag  of  the  Danes — mirac- 
ulously appeared  among  them.  Under  this  banner,  a 
white  cross  on  a  red  field,  they  conquered,  and  since 
that  time  this  symbol  has  been  the  flag  of  Denmark. 
Their  king,  Waldemar,  instituted  at  that  time  an 
order  of  knighthood — the  order  of  the  Danebrog^ 
which,  under  changed  conditions,  still  exists. 

The  flag  of  Denmark  is  by  far  the  most  ancient  of 
existing  European  flags.  The  cross  of  St.  George 
has  been  in  use  as  the  English  ensign  since  1327, 
and  the  lilies  of  France  were  adopted  on  the  coat  of 
arms  of  the  French  kings  in  1179.  The  green  ban- 
ner of  Mohammed  (A.  D.  626)  is  still  preserved  at 
Constantinople.  The  royal  flag  of  Denmark  termi- 
nates in  two  points  like  a  pennon,  as  did  also  that  of 
Norway  and  Sweden  while  united.  Most  other  mod- 
ern ensigns  are  rectangular.  The  standard  of  Den- 
mark bears  the  royal  coat  of  arms.  The  merchant 
flag  omits  it. 

Ecuador. — See  Plate  IV.  Its  flag  is  divided  hori- 
zontally into  two  halves.  The  upper  half  is  gold. 
The  lower  half  is  again  divided  into  two  stripes,  blue 
(uppermost)  and  red.  The  flags  of  Ecuador,  Colom- 
bia., and  Venezuela  are  similar  in  colors  and  arrange- 
ment of  stripes,  and  differ  only  in  ornamentation. 
11 


146         THE   FLAGS  OP  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 

Egypt. — See  Plate  X.  The  flag  of  Egypt  was  red, 
and  in  its  center  it  bore  a  silver  crescent  whose  horns 
nearly  touched  a  silver  star.  This  flag  was  the  same 
as  that  of  Turkey.  On  December  18,  1914,  Great 
Britain  proclaimed  Egypt  a  British  protectorate,  as 
an  incident  of  the  European  war. 

England.— See  Chapter  IV.  The  modern  flags 
of  Great  Britain  are  shown  in  Plate  III.  The  flag 
of  England  is  St.  George's  cross  without  the  union. 

France. — See  Chapter  IV.  The  flag  of  France  is 
shown  in  Plate  V. 

French  Cochin-China.— See  Plate  V. 

Geneva  Red  Cross  Association. — A  convention  was 
held  in  Geneva  in  18G3  for  the  purpose  of  forming 
an  international  association  for  the  succor  of  the 
wounded  in  time  of  warfare.  In  this  and  subsequent 
international  congresses  a  society — the  Red  Cross  So- 
ciety— was  founded,  and  it  is  recognized  officially  by 
nearly  all  civilized  nations,  and  has  done  endless  good 
in  the  alleviation  of  suffering.  It  has  a  flag — a  red 
Greek  cross  on  a  white  field — that  is  everywhere  hon- 
ored and  respected.  The  Swiss  flag  (Plate  X)  with 
its  colors  interchanged — red  for  white  and  white  for 
red — is  the  flag  of  the  Association. 

Germany.— See  Plate  VI.  The  flag  of  Germany 
(1871)  is  admirably  composed  to  represent  the  colors 
of  the  chief  kingdoms  united  in  the  cm  pin-.  The 
German  flag  is  composed  of  throe  hnri/nntal  stripes 
of  black,  white,  and  red.  The  flag  of  Prussia  is  two 
such  stripes,  black  and  white  ;  Bavaria's  is  two  stripes, 
blue  and  white;  Saxony's  is  two  stripes,  white  and 
green ;  Wurtemberg's  is  two  stripes,  black  and  red ; 


Vlll. 


.  Mf.rn.HANl  POHTUGAL, 


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W^^  -SPAtlV,  *<fAH      1 


THE  FLAGS  OF   SOVEREIGN  STATES. 

Baden's  is  two  stripes,  red  and  gold.  At  least  half 
of  the  flag  of  each  of  these  ancient  kingdoms  is  rep- 
resented in  the  ensign  of  the  empire,  and  several  of 
them  are  there  in  their  entirety.  The  flags  of  several 
of  the  smaller  duchies — Hesse,  Waldeck,  Liibeck,  etc. 
— are  equally  well  represented  in  the  combined  flag. 
The  imperial  standard  is  shown  in  Plate  VI.  It  bears 
the  iron  cross  (the  symbol  of  an  order  of  knighthood), 
the  black  eagle  (ditto)  and  four  imperial  crowns.* 
The  red  eagle  of  Brandenburg  displays  on  its  breast 
the  black  eagle  of  Prussia.  The  flag  of  the  ancient 
German  Empire  from  the  end  of  the  Middle  Ages  till 
1806  was  a  black  eagle  on  a  golden  field.  This  ban- 
ner was  certainly  used  as  early  as  1336,  and  probably 
much  earlier.  Black  and  gold  were  the  German  col- 
ors as  early  as  A.  D.  1214.  The  man-of-war  flag  is 
also  shown  in  Plate  VI. 

Great  Britain.— See  Chapter  IV  and  Plate  III. 
The  royal  standard  displays  the  quartered  arms  of 
Great  Britain  and  Ireland.  The  proper  flag  of  Eng- 
land is  the  cross  of  St.  George  without  the  union. 
The  plate  shows  the  banners  of  Scotland  and  of  Ire- 
land. 

Great  Britain,  Colonies  of.— Most  of  the  colo- 
nies of  Great  Britain  have  badges  or  coats  of  arms. 
The  revenue  cutters  and  other  vessels  belonging  to 
these  colonies  fly  the  blue  ensign  of  Great  Britain 
with  the  addition  of  the  proper  colonial  badge  in  the 
middle  of  the  "  fly  "  of  the  ensign — that  is,  in  the  cen- 
ter of  the  space  between  the  union  and  the  tail  of  the 

*  Crowns  of  Charlemagne. 


148        THE  FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 

flag.  These  badges  are  circular  disks  of  various  col- 
ors, with  a  device  of  some  sort  upon  the  disks.  Some 
of  the  badges  are  as  follows ; 

CANADA. — The  Dominion  coat  of  arms.  See 
Plate  III  for  the  badge. 

CAPE  OF  GOOD  HOPE. — The  coat  of  arms  of  the 
colony,  and  the  name  of  the  colony  Latinized,  Spes 
Bona. 

NEWFOUNDLAND. — A  white  disk,  bearing  a  royal 
crown,  and  the  name  of  the  colony  Latinized,  Terra 
Nova. 

NEW  ZEALAND — A  Greek  cross  of  silver  stars  on 
a  blue  disk. 

NEW  SOUTH  WALES. — A  red  cross  of  St.  George 
with  a  silver  star  on  each  arm  of  the  cross,  and  a  lion 
at  its  center. 

QUEENSLAND. — A  blue  Maltese  cross  on  a  white 
disk,  with  a  crown  at  the  center  of  the  cross. 

SOUTH  AUSTRALIA. — A  landscape  of  rocks  and 
sea,  the  goddess  Britannia  and  a  native  Australian. 

VICTORIA. — The  southern  cross  on  a  blue  shield, 
surmounted  by  a  royal  crown,  all  on  a  white  disk. 

WEST  AUSTRALIA. — On  a  yellow  disk  a  black 
swan. 

These  are  the  flags  to  be  flown  by  the  vessels  of 
the  colonial  services,  and  are  presumably  the  official 
flags  of  the  colonies.  Canada  lias  been  granted  an 
official  flag,  which  is  the  red  ensign  of  England,  with 
the  badge  as  above  (Plate  III). 

Greece.— See  Plate  VIII.  The  merchant  flag  of 
modern  Greece  has  nine  horizontal  stripes  of  blue  and 
white,  and  a  blue  union  charged  with  a  white  Greek 


THE  FLAGS  OF  SOVEREIGN  STATES.        149 

cross.  It  dates  no  further  back  than  1832,  when 
Otho  I,  Prince  of  Bavaria,  became  King  of  Greece, 
and  brought  the  blue  and  white  colors  of  his  family 
with  him.  It  would  seem  that  some  symbols  of  the 
ancient  glories  of  a  country  with  so  extended  a  history 
might  have  been  adopted  in  its  standard.  The  royal 
standard  ensigns  the  cross  with  a  golden  crown. 

Guatemala. — Its  flag  is  of  three  vertical  bars,  blue, 
white,  and  blue.  See  Plate  IV. 

Hawaiian  Islands. — See  Plate  II.  The  flag  of  the 
Hawaiian  Kingdom  had  eight  horizontal  stripes.  The 
upper  stripe  was  white,  then  came  red,  blue,  white, 
red,  blue,  white,  and  red.  The  blue  union  bore  St. 
George's  and  St.  Andrew's  crosses  in  red  with  white 
borders. 

The  history  of  the  flag  of  the  Hawaiian  Islands 
(in  1900  made  a  territory  of  the  United  States)  is 
briefly  as  follows:  In  1793  the  explorer  Vancouver 
gave  an  English  flag  to  the  king  to  be  used  as  his 
colors,  and  a  traveler  reports  that  the  British  flag  was 
flying  over  the  king's  residence  in  1808.  In  1816  the 
flag  of  the  islands  was  described  as  "the  English 
Union  Jack  with  seven  alternated  red,  white,  and 
blue  stripes."  An  English  naval  officer  in  1825  de- 
clares that  it  consisted  of  "seven  white  and  red 
stripes,  with  the  Union  Jack  in  the  corner."  The 
former  flag  had  eight  stripes,  one  for  each  of  the  is- 
lands —  Hawaii,  Maui,  Kahoolawe,  Lanai,  Molokai, 
Oahu,  Nihau,  Kauai.  The  latter  island  was  under 
an  independent  king  until  1821,  and  it  is  probable 
that  its  stripe  was  not  added  until  1845,  for  the 
Polynesian  newspaper  of  May  31,  1845,  says:  "At 


150         THE  FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 

the  opening  of  the  Legislative  Council,  May  25,  1845, 
the  new  national  banner  was  unfurled,  differing  little, 
however,  from  the  former."  It  is  fully  described  in 
that  publication,  and  agrees  with  the  ante- American 
flag.  The  first,  fourth,  and  seventh  stripes  are  silver ; 
the  second,  fifth,  and  eighth  are  red;  the  third  and 
sixth  are  blue.  Since  the  Hawaiian  Islands  were  an- 
nexed to  the  United  States  in  1898  their  national 
ensign  is,  of  course,  the  American  flag.  Their  old 
colors  are  now  simply  reminders  of  the  past,  of  eight 
independent  island  kingdoms,  then  a  single  despotism. 

Hayti  or  Haiti. — The  merchant  flag  is  divided 
horizontally  into  two  halves — blue  (uppermost)  and 
red.  See  Plate  IV.  The  war  flag  adds  the  national 
coat  of  arms  on  a  white  square  at  the  center  of  the 
flag. 

Holland.— See  NETHERLANDS. 

Honduras, — Its  flag  has  three  horizontal  stripes, 
blue,  white,  and  blue,  and  the  central  stripe  bears  five 
azure  stars.  See  Plate  IV. 

Hungary. — See  AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. 

Iceland. — It  is  a  colony  of  Denmark  and  flies  the 
Danish  ensign. 

Italy.— See  Plate  VII.  In  early  times  each  city 
of  Italy  had  its  own  banner.  Milan  about  the  year 
1035  displayed  its  banner  from  the  top  of  a  mast  set 
in  a  chariot  drawn  by  white  oxen.  The  fashion  was 
copied  by  other  cities  and  passed  into  England  soon 
afterward,  as  we  have  seen.  The  chariot  (carriocium 
in  Latin,  carroccio  in  Italian)  was  guarded  by  stout 
warriors  and  was  set  in  the  midst  of  the  troops.  So 
long  as  it  maintained  its  place  the  battle  was  going 


THE  FLAGS  OF  SOVEREIGN  STATES.       151 

well.  When  it  was  captured  or  overturned  the  day 
was  lost. 

The  Florentine  emblem  is  the  lily.  The  legend 
recites  that  the  army  of  Florence  was  sore  pressed 
in  a  battle  with  the  barbarians  in  A.  D.  405,  when  St. 
Reparata  suddenly  appeared  bearing  a  red  banner 
with  a  white  lily  for  device  and  turned  the  fortunes 
of  the  day.  The  lily  of  Florence  was  white  until  A.  D. 
1251,  when  it  was  changed  to  red  in  memory  of  the 
blood  of  her  citizens  that  had  been  shed  in  the  con- 
flicts between  the  parties  of  the  Guelphs  and  of  the 
Ghibellines. 

The  present  flag  of  Italy  is  a  tricolor  of  three  ver- 
tical stripes  of  green  (next  the  staff),  white,  and  red. 
It  was  established  in  1861.  White  and  red  are  the 
colors  of  the  reigning  royal  house  of  Savoy,  and  green 
was  added  as  the  color  of  hope — hope  for  a  United 
Italy.  The  tricolor  of  green,  white,  and  red  was 
adopted  by  the  provisional  government  of  Venice 
during  the  revolution  of  1848,  and  the  same  colors 
were  given  to  the  kingdom  of  Italy  by  Napoleon  I. 
The  war  flag  (see  Plate  VII)  bears  the  arms  of  the 
house  of  Savoy  on  the  center  bar.  The  royal  standard 
bears  the  same  arms  on  a  white  field  bordered  blue. 
The  Savoy  arms  are  those  of  the  Sovereign  Order  of 
St.  John  of  Jerusalem,  and  were  granted  to  the  Duke 
of  Savoy  in  1309  as  a  mark  of  gratitude  for  his  help 
in  the  defense  of  the  island  of  Rhodes  against  the 
Saracens. 

Ireland.— See  Chapter  IV  and  Plate  III. 

Japan. — See  Plate  IX.  For  something  over 
twenty-five  hundred  years  Japan  has  been  a  military 


152        THE  FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 

nation.  Six  hundred  and  sixty  years  before  Christ 
the  present  reigning  family  came  to  the  throne ;  and 
the  emperor  is  the  one  hundred  and  twenty-second  of 
his  line.*  If  we  go  back  to  GGO  B.  c.  in  the  history 
of  our  Western  world,  it  takes  us  to  the  time  of 
Nebuchadnezzar,  King  of  Babylon,  whose  story  is 
told  in  the  Old  Testament.  There  is  no  dynasty  in 
Europe  that  compares  in  age  with  this.  The  Bour- 
bons of  France  date  from  A.  D.  884  only  ;  the  Haps- 
burgs  of  Austria  from  952. 

The  history  of  Japan  is  in  many  respects  like  that 
of  Europe  in  the  Middle  Ages.  The  system  of  gov- 
ernment was  in  both  cases  the  feudal  system.  The 
nominal  head  of  Japan  was  the  emperor  (the  Mi- 
kado). From  very  early  times  the  real  power  was 
usurped  by  a  military  chief — the  Shogun — who  ruled 
in  the  name  of  the  Mikado.  The  first  shogun  dates 
from  the  fourteenth  century.  One  powerful  family 
— the  Tokagawas — held  the  shogunate  from  1602  till 
1868.  In  the  latter  year  they  were  overthrown,  and 
the  Mikado  is  the  head  of  modern  Japan,  as  he  was 
of  the  Japan  of  ancient  days.  The  various  provinces 
were  governed  by  the  daimios  (like  earls  and  counts 
in  Europe),  arid  each  daimio  maintained  a  court  in  his 
capital  city.  The  great  lords  of  Japan  had  Icarm-il 
men  and  artists  in  their  train  as  well  as  soldiers,  and 
courtesy  and  chivalry  were  practiced  everywhere. 

The  Japanese  warriors  were  as  fierce  and  warlike 
as  the  Crusaders  or  as  the  feudal  barons  of  the  Middle 


*  Failing  a  direct  male  heir  to  the  throne  the  family  is  re- 
cruit <-d  by  the  adoption  of  a  nephew  or  of  a  cousin  of  the  em- 
peror. 


153 


154        THE  FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 

Ages  in  Europe.  But  our  own  ancestors  chose  for  their 
emblems  beasts  of  prey,  like  the  lion  and  tiger,  fierce 
birds  like  the  eagle,  fabulous  animals  like  the  dragon 
or  the  wyveru.  The  Japanese,  on  the  other  hand, 
with  their  gentle  and  cultivated  feeling  for  art  and 
manners,  almost  always  selected  beautiful,  simple,  even 
humble  emblems — flowers,  birds,  butterflies,  geomet- 
rical patterns.  The  dragon  was  a  symbol  of  the  em- 
peror's power  in  Japan,  but  it  was  not  taken  as  the 
principal  emblem  of  the  imperial  family.  Instead  of 
this,  the  chrysanthemum,  a  beautiful  flower,  was 
chosen. 

The  Crusaders  thought  it  necessary  to  emphasize 
their  own  courage  and  strength  by  choosing  emblems 
among  the  savage  beasts.  The  Japanese  warrior  of 
the  same  period  felt  that  his  courage  and  bravery 
would  be  taken  for  granted,  and  he  wished  his  sym- 
bols to  recall  beautiful  and  artistic  forms  and  courte- 
ous high-bred  manners.  A  curious  example  of  this 
characteristic  difference  survives  to  this  day  in  the 
Japanese  custom  of  releasing  a  flight  of  white  doves 
when  a  war  ship  is  launched.  The  European  habit  is 
to  break  a  bottle  of  wine  over  the  prow  of  the  ship. 

The  national  flag  is  shown  in  Plate  IX. 

The  white  field  of  the  Japanese  HILT  carries  a  red 
circle — "  the  circle  of  the  sun  " — and  this  emblem  was 
in  use  by  the  emperor  at  l<-;i<t  MS  curly  as  \.  i>.  1109, 
though  it  was  not  formally  adopted  as  a  national  flag 
until  is:,!).  Tlic  flag  of  Japan  and  ihc  dragon  siand- 
ard  of  China  an-  the  oldest  of  national  flags.  The 
flag  of  Denmark — by  far  the  oldest  in  Europe — was 
not  adopted  until  1219. 


{NOW  JAPANESE] 


l£TY  ISU 

rUSIOH 

(NOW  FPENCH) 


THE  FLAGS  OF  SOVEREIGN  STATES.       155 

The  first  mention  of  flags  in  Japanese  history  is 
in  connection  with  the  invasion  of  Corea  by  her  army 
in  A.  D.  201.  The  Japanese  standard  that  foreign 
countries  are  most  likely  to  see  is  the  standard  dis- 
played on  her  ships  of  war.  It  is  the  flag  of  her  armies 
as  well.  Its  field  is  white,  and  the  red  circle  of  the 
sun  is  the  center  of  a  series  of  red  diverging  rays 
that  suggest  the  leaves  of  the  chrysanthemum — the 
imperial  badge. 

Liberia. — The  flag  of  Liberia  in  general  resembles 
that  of  the  United  States.  It  has  six  red  stripes  and 
five  white  ones.  Its  blue  canton  bears  a  single  silver 
star.  (See  Plate  IX.) 

Luxemburg.^-The  flag  of  Luxemburg  is  a  tricolor 
of  three  horizontal  stripes,  red  (uppermost),  white, 
and  blue.  It  was  supplanted  by  the  Germans  in  1914. 

Madagascar. — While  Madagascar  was  a  protec- 
torate of  France  it  had  a  flag,  as  shown  in  Plate  V, 
but  this,  like  that  of  Hawaii,  is  now  only  a  reminder 
of  the  past. 

Malta. — The  flag  of  Malta  (which  is  now  a  British 
possession)  is  shown  in  Plate  III.  See  THE  SOVER- 
EIGN ORDER  OF  ST.  JOHN  OF  JERUSALEM  in  this 
chapter. 

Mexico. — The  tricolor  of  Mexico  has  three  vertical 
bars,  green  (next  the  staff),  white,  and  red.  The  eagle 
seizing  a  snake  and  the  cactus  in  the  Mexican  coat  of 
arms  is  an  ancient  Aztec  symbol.  (See  Plate  IX.)  The 
merchant  flag  is  the  tricolor  without  this  coat  of  arms. 
The  principal  banner  of  the  army  of  the  conquistador es 
of  Mexico  under  Cortez  (1519)  was  of  black  velvet  bear- 
ing a  red  cross.  A  religious  banner  of  the  expedition 


156        THE  FLAGS  OP  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 

is  still  preserved  at  the  city  of  Mexico.  It  is  of  red 
damask,  and  bears  on  one  side  a  picture  of  the 
Virgin  Mary,  on  the  other  the  quartered  arms  of 
Castile  and  Leon  (see  Fig.  1).  One  of  the  banners  of 
Pizarro  borne  by  his  army  in  the  conquest  of  Peru 
was  preserved  in  Lima  until  the  present  century, 
but  it  was  lost  in  one  of  the  many  revolutions  of  the 
country. 

Monaco. — Its  flag  is  composed  of  two  horizontal 
stripes,  red  (uppermost)  and  white.  The  territory  of 
the  principality  is  three  miles  by  one  and  a  half  miles, 
and  the  flag  floats  over  twelve  thousand  five  hundred 
and  forty-eight  inhabitants. 

Montenegro. — The  flag  of  Montenegro  is  the  same 
as  that  of  Servia,  namely,  a  tricolor  of  three  hori- 
zontal stripes,  red  (uppermost),  blue,  and  white.  See 
Plate  X.  Montenegro  has  another  ensign  of  three 
horizontal  stripes  (red,  white,  and  red),  bearing  a  white 
cross  in  the  upper  and  inner  corner,  which  is  the  flag 
of  its  merchant  ships.  The  colors  red  and  white  are 
derived  from  the  coat  of  arms  of  the  family  of  Pahe- 
ologus,  Greek  emperors  of  Constantinople  in  the 
thirteenth,  fourteenth,  and  fifteenth  centuries.  The 
arms  of  the  Palaeologi  were  a  white  doable-headed 
eagle  on  a  red  field,  and  these  are  the  arms  of  Mon- 
i  'iienTo.  The  arms  of  the  reigning  king  arc  n  golden 
lion  on  n  irnvn  mound  in  an  a/iire  field.  The  Ihig 
sometimes  bears  one  of  these  coats,  sometimes  (ho 
other.  The  illustration  in  Plate  X  show  the  cipher 
of  the  kinx  beneath  a  crown. 

Moravia. — See  AUSTIN  \-Ilt  XCIARY.  Its  colors  - 
gold  and  red — were  adopted  in  1848,  during  the  revo- 


THE  FLAGS  OF  SOVEREIGN  STATES.       157 

lutionary  period,  and  they  repeat  the  tinctures  of  the 
eagle  on  its  ancient  coat  of  arms. 

Morocco. — The  flag  of  Morocco  is  red,  with  the 
device  of  two  crossed  scimitars  shown  in  Plate  VIII. 
The  merchant  flag  is  plain  red. 

Netherlands.— (Two  pictures,  see  Plate  VIII.)  The 
national  flag  of  the  Netherlands  has  three  horizontal 
stripes  of  red  (uppermost),  white,  and  blue.  For 
centuries  Holland  had  no  separate  existence.  It  was 
a  part  of  the  Duchy  of  Burgundy  from  1436  to  1477, 
then  a  province  of  Austria,  passing  to  Spain  in  1506. 
The  independence  of  the  Dutch  Republic  was  not 
recognized  until  1648.  The  colors  of  the  house  of 
Orange  (orange,  white,  and  blue)  served  as  the  na- 
tional standard  through  long  and  troublous  years, 
until  the  orange  gradually  changed,  without  any  spe- 
cial reason  for  the  change — about  1660 — into  red. 

Newfoundland.  —  See  GREAT  BRITAIN,  COLO- 
NIES OF. 

New  South  Wales. — Its  separate  flag  had  a  white 
field  with  a  blue  cross  charged  with  five  silver  stars. 
See  AUSTRALIAN  COMMONWEALTH. 

New  Zealand,  Dominion  of. — Dominion  ensign  is 
the  same  as  the  British  merchant  flag,  with  the  addi- 
tion of  four  five-pointed  stars  near  the  edge  of  the 
flag,  symbolizing  the  Southern  Cross.  See  Plate  III. 

Nicaragua. — The  maritime  flag  of  Nicaragua  has 
five  horizontal  stripes,  blue,  white,  red  (in  the  cen- 
ter), white,  and  blue.  See  Plate  IV. 

Norway. — Since  its  separation  from  Sweden  in 
1905,  its  standard  has  been  a  red  flag  displaying  a 
crowned  lion  holding  a  battle-axe;  ensign,  red  and 


158         THE  FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 

three-tailed,  with  a  blue  cross  extended  in  a  point 
between  the  upper  and  lower  tails. 

Orange  Free  State. — See  UNION  OF  SOUTH  AF- 
RICA. 

(The  Sovereign)  Order  of  St.  John  of  Jerusalem.— 
The  order  of  knighthood  called  St.  John  of  Jerusa- 
lem (Knights  of  Rhodes,  1310-1522,  and  after  1522 
Knights  of  Malta)  was  founded  in  the  year  1048  to 
be  of  service  to  the  Crusaders.  The  order  grew  rich 
and  very  powerful,  and  it  took  a  flag  just  as  a  nation 
might  take  a  standard.  Its  flag  is  red  with  a  white 
cross,  and  is  at  least  as  old  as  1130.  As  the  order  still 
exists  its  flag  has  a  place  in  this  book.  The  order  is 
called  "  sovereign  "  just  as  France  is  called  a  sovereign 
state;  and  in  Europe  its  flag  is  saluted  and  respected 
just  as  is  the  flag  of  France.  It  is  never  seen  in 
America.  The  standard  of  the  order  is  black,  and 
bears  a  silver  Maltese  cross.  There  were  other  orders 
of  knighthood  of  the  same  kind  (the  Knights  Tem- 
plars, etc.),  but  they  are  now  abolished.  This  one 
still  lives. 

Panama. — The  national  flag  is  divided  into  four 
even  sections;  upper  half  at  staff,  white  with  blue 
star;  lower  half,  all  blue;  upper  right  half,  all  red; 
lower  half,  all  white  with  red  star. 

Paraguay. — See  Plate  IX.  Its  tricolor  flag  is  di- 
vided into  three  horizontal  stripes,  red,  (uppermost), 
while,  and  blue.  The  center  stripe  is  the  widest,  and 
it  bears  the  national  coat  of  arms. 

Persia.— See  Plate  X.  The  white  flag  of  Persia 
is  bordered  with  green,  and  it  bears  the  device  of  the 
kingdom,  namely,  the  lion  and  the  sun  in  yellow. 


THE  FLAGS  OF  SOVEREIGN  STATES.       159 

Another  Persian  ensign  is  a  tricolor  of  horizontal 
stripes,  green  (uppermost),  gold,  and  white. 

Peru. — See  Plate  IX.  The  modern  flag  of  Peru 
is  red,  white,  and  red,  in  three  vertical  bars.  The 
war  flag  bears  also  the  national  coat  of  arms.  In  the 
army  of  the  Incas  each  company  had  its  banner,  and 
the  standard  of  the  emperor  was  emblazoned  with  the 
rainbow — the  emblem  of  the  "children  of  the  sun." 

Philippines.— The  flag  of  the  insurgents  in  the 
Philippines,  1898,  was  divided  into  two  halves  by  a 


FIG.  49.— The  flag  of  the  Insurgent  Philippines,  1898. 

horizontal  line.  The  upper  half  was  red,  the  lower 
blue.  Next  the  staff  was  half  of  a  white  diamond. 

Poland. — The  ancient  coat  of  arms  of  the  kingdom 
of  Poland  was  a  white  eagle  on  a  red  field,  and  this 
emblem  was  adopted  for  the  upper  canton  of  a  white 
flag  displaying  across  it  a  St.  Andrew  cross  in  blue. 

Pontifical    States. — Ensign    displays    two    broad 


160        THE  FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 

perpendicular  stripes,  yellow  at  staff,  white  at  edge, 
with  the  pontifical  symbol  over-lapping  each  half. 

Porto  Rico. — Formerly  flew  the  Spanish  flag; 
since  1898  the  United  States  only  is  recognized. 

Portugal. — See  three  pictures  in  Plate  VIII.  The 
merchant  flag  of  Portugal  is  half  blue  and  half  white, 
with  the  line  of  division  vertical,  and  the  royal  coat 
of  arms  is  placed  at  the  center  of  the  field  of  the  en- 
sign. It  was  adopted  in  1815,  but  it  is  a  modification 
of  the  ensigns  of  the  earlier  centuries  when  Portugal 
was  a  great  commercial  power,  and  when  her  hardy 
navigators  opened  Africa  and  the  Indies  to  Europe. 
The  flag  of  Portugal  in  the  Indies  bore  an  armillary 
sphere,  and  this  device  was  displayed  in  the  ensign  of 
Brazil  so  long  as  it  was  an  empire.  Portugal  became 
a  republic  in  1910,  but  it  retained  on  its  principal 
flags  the  arms  of  the  former  monarchy,  the  seven  cas- 
tles and  five  shields,  changed  its  colors  to  green  at  the 
staff  and  red  at  the  outer  edge,  and  made  the  red 
section  wider  than  the  green. 

Prussia. — See  GERMANY. 

Queensland. — See  AUSTRALIAN  COMMONWEALTH. 

Rumania. — See  Plate  X.  The  flag  of  Rumania 
is  a  tricolor  of  vertical  bars — blue  nearest  the  staff, 
then  gold,  then  red.  These  colors  were  adopted  dur- 
ing the  revolutionary  times  of  1848. 

Russia.— See  Plate  VII.  The  national  flag  of 
Rii— ia  is  a  tricolor  of  horizontal  stripes,  black  (upper- 
mosl),  orange,  and  white.  This  is  not  shown  in  the 
plate.  The  war  flag  is  white,  with  a  blue  St.  Andrew's 
cross.  The  flag  of  merchant  ships  is  a  tricolor  of  hori- 
zontal stripes,  white  (uppermost),  blue,  and  red.  The 


X. 


corroo 
(NOW  BELGIAN) 


[PART  NOW  TURKISH) 


,  MERCMA  N  T 


r,  WAR. 
(HOW  BRITISH) 


(NOW  UN  I  ON  OF 
SOUTH  APfiICA) 


THE  FLAGS  OP  SOVEREIGN  STATES.        161 

imperial  standard  is  orange  colored,  with  the  double- 
headed  eagle  of  the1  empire  bearing  on  his  breast  the 
national  coat  of  arms. 

Samoa. — Since  the  division  of  the  islands  between 
the  United  States  and  Germany  in  1900,  the  flags  of 
those  countries  only  have  been  flown. 

San  Marino. — The  little  republic  of  San  Marino 
has  a  flag  of  seven  horizontal  stripes,  alternate  blue 
and  white.  The  republic  dates  from  the  fourth  cen- 
tury. It  has  eight  thousand  inhabitants. 

San  Salvador. — The  flag  is  like  that  of  the  United 
States  in  design.  It  has  five  blue  stripes  and  four 
white  ones.  Its  union  is  red  and  bears  nine  silver 
stars.  See  Plate  IV. 

Santo  Domingo. — The  Dominican  Republic.     See 
Plate  IV.     Its  merchant  flag  bears  a  white  cross,  and 
the  angles  of  the  cross  are  filled  as  follows : 
blue        red 
red          blue. 

The  national  ensign  adds  a  coat  of  arms  at  the  center 
of  the  cross. 

Sarawak. — It  has  a  yellow  flag  on  which  a  cross  is 
displayed.  The  half  of  the  cross  next  to  the  staff  is 
black,  and  the  other  half  is  red. 

Saxony.— See  GERMANY.  The  ancient  colors  of 
Saxony  were  black  and  gold,  and  since  A.  D.  1151  a 
green  wreath  has  been  borne  on  its  coat  of  arms. 
The  Saxon  kings  of  Poland  took  the  Polish  colors, 
red  and  white.  Black  and  gold  were  the  colors  of 
Saxony  until  the  end  of  the  Napoleonic  wars  of 
1813-15.  On  the  restoration  of  the  king  in  1815 
white  and  green  were  established  as  the  Saxon  colors. 
12 


162        THE  FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 

Scotland.— See  Chapter  IV  and  Plate  III. 

Servia. — The  flag  of  Servia  is  a  tricolor  of  three 
horizontal  stripes,  red  (uppermost),  blue,  and  white. 
The  flag  of  Montenegro  is  the  same  design.  The 
royal  standard  bears  the  coat  of  arms.  See  Plate  X. 

Siam. — The  red  flag  of  Siam  bears  in  its  center  a 
white  elephant.  See  Plate  V. 

Silesia.— See  AUSTRIA-HUNGARY.  The  colors- 
gold  and  black — are  derived  from  its  ancient  coat  of 
arms — viz.,  a  black  eagle  on  a  gold  field. 

Society  Islands.— See  Plate  IX. 

South  Australia.  —  See  AUSTRALIAN  COMMON- 
WEALTH. 

Spain. — The  Spanish  flags  are  shown  in  Plato 
VIII.  Many  changes  have  been  made  in  the  standard 
of  Spain,  which  has  usually  borne  the  royal  coat  of 
arms.  The  castle  of  Castile,  the  lion  of  Leon  (see 
Fig.  1),  the  pomegranate  of  Grenada,  the  lion  of  Flan- 
ders, the  red,  white,  and  red  of  Austria,  the  palle 
(pills)  of  the  Medicis,  the  eagle  of  the  Tyrol,  the 
fleurs-de-lis  of  France,  the  gold  and  azure  diagonal 
bars  of  ancient  Burgundy,  the  red  and  gold  liars  of 
Aragon,  and  the  arms  of  Sicily — all  these  emblems  ap- 
pear in  the  royal  shield.*  The  merchant  flag  of  Spain 
is  a  yellow  field  with  two  narrow  ml  h:irs.  and  is  prob- 
ably derived  from  the  arm<  of  Arairon,  though  tbe 
colors  are  also  those  of  the  shield  of  Castile. 

Sweden. — Since  the  dissolution  of  its  union  with 
Norway  in  1905,  Sweden  lias  had  a  separate  Hair,  dis- 
playing a  yellow  cross  on  a  pale  blue  Held  :  its  eii-i^u  is 
swallow-tailed,  with  the  horizontal  liar  of  the  , 

*  Which  is  not  accurately  drawn  in  Plate  VIII. 


THE  FLAGS  OP  SOVEREIGN  STATES.        163 

extended  beyond  the  outer  edge,  giving  the  flag  three 
tails ;  its  standard  is  the  ensign  with  a  centered  white 
square  bearing  the  royal  coat-of-arms.  The  merchant 
flags  of  Denmark,  Norway,  and  Sweden  are  similar 
excepting  in  colors  of  fields  and  crosses.  See  Plate 
VIII. 

Switzerland.— See  Plate  X.  The  Swiss  flag  is  red, 
and  it  bears  a  Greek  cross  of  white  in  its  center.  The 
Switzers  declared  their  independence  in  1307,  and  at 
the  battle  of  Morgarten  (1315),  where  the  Austrians 
were  defeated,  they  carried  a  plain  red  flag  without 
any  device.  During  the  seventeenth  century  a  white 
cross  was.  added,  though  it  is  said  that  the  cross  ap- 
peared on  some  Swiss  flags  as  early  as  1339.  The  dif- 
ferent cantons  of  Switzerland  have  different  coats  of 
arms  and  different  flags. 

Tahiti. — Its  flag  has  three  horizontal  stripes  of 
red,  white,  and  red,  and  on  a  canton  the  French  tri- 
color of  vertical  bars,  blue,  white,  and  red,  the  same 
as  that  of  the  Society  Islands.  Plate  IX. 

Tonga  Protectorate. — The  ensign  is  red,  with  a  St. 
George  cross  in  the  upper  canton. 

Transvaal. — The  former  South  African  Republic 
had  a  flag  with  three  horizontal  stripes,  blue  (upper- 
most), white,  and  red,  with  vertical  band  of  green  at 
the  staff.  This  flag  was  supplanted  by  that  of  the 
Union  of  South  Africa  in  1909. 

Tripoli.— See  Plate  V.    Its  flag  is  all  red. 

Tunis. — The  war  flag  of  Tunis  is  red.  It  bears  a 
white  oval  at  its  center  and  a  red  crescent  and  star 
are  superposed  on  the  oval.  See  Plate  V.  The  mer- 
chant flag  is  plain  red. 


164         THE  FLAGS  OF  FOREIGN  NATIONS. 

Turkey. — See  two  pictures  in  Plate  X.  The  pres- 
ent war  flag  of  Turkey  is  red,  bearing  near  the  staff 
a  silver  crescent  encircling  a  silver  star.  The  Turks 
also  carry  a  standard  divided  horizontally  into  two 
bars — one  red,  the  other  green.  The  merchant  flag 
of  Turkey  is  pictured  in  the  last  figure  of  Plate  X. 

Union  of  South  Africa. — Constituted  in  1909; 
comprises  the  former  colonies  of  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope,  Natal,  the  Transvaal,  and  the  Orange  Eiver 
Colony;  ensign,  the  same  as  the  British  merchant 
flag,  with  the  addition  of  the  arms  of  the  former  col- 
onies quartered  on  a  shield  in  a  white  disk  near  the 
edge  of  the  flag. 

United  States  of  America. — See  Part  I  of  this 
book,  Chapters  I,  II,  and  Plates  I  and  II. 

United  States  of  Venezuela. — The  flag  has  three 
horizontal  stripes,  gold  (uppermost),  blue,  and  red. 
At  the  center  is  a  cluster  of  seven  silver  stars,  one  for 
each  State.  See  Plate  IV. 

Uruguay. — Its  flag  has  nine  horizontal  stripes,  al- 
ternate white  (uppermost)  and  blue.  On  a  white 
canton  is  a  golden  sun.  See  Plate  IX. 

Victoria. — See  AUSTRALIAN  COMMONWEALTH. 

Western  Australia. — See  AUSTRALIAN  COMMON- 
WEALTH. 

Wiirtemberg. — See  GERMANY.  The  colors  of 
Wiirtemberg  are  black  and  red.  Its  ancient  coat  of 
arms  contained  three  red  lions.  When  the  heir  to  the 
throne  of  Naples  (Conradin  of  Suabia)  was  defeated 
and  beheaded,  in  1268,  the  lions  were  changed  to 
Hack,  and  these  colors  are  still  represented  in  the 
flag. 


\ 


THE  FLAGS  OP  SOVEREIGN  STATES.       165 

Zanzibar  lias  one  flag  shaped  like  a  pennon,  with 
a  swallow  tail.  All  the  stripes  are  horizontal.  The 
top  stripe  is  narrow  and  is  red.  The  next  stripe  is 
narrow  and  white.  The  next  is  narrow  and  green. 
Then  comes  a  wide  white  stripe,  with  three  green 
crescents.  The  next  stripe  is  red, 'and  the  next  green, 
and  these  two  stripes  are  wider  than  the  narrowest 
ones  and  not  so  wide  as  the  widest  one.  The  middle 
stripe  of  the  flag  is  wide,  and  has  three  green  cres- 
cents. Then  come  red,  green,  wide  white  (with  three 
green  crescents),  narrow  red,  narrow  white,  narrow 
green  stripes  in  order.  A  plain  red  flag  is  also  flown. 
See  Plate  III. 


(12) 


THE   END. 


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